


The First Chapter (This Moment)

by josiepug



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, M/M, POV Elizabeth "Eliza" Schuyler, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-02-18 04:14:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 54,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13092189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiepug/pseuds/josiepug
Summary: Eliza Schuyler graduated college in the spring of 2016, and she has a bright future ahead of her, but there's something missing from her life. She decides to make a change.She does not expect this change to involve road-tripping across the United States with four brilliant and restless young men. Friendship, love, heartbreak, and a disgusting amount of fast food accompany her on the two week trip that will change her life forever.Welcome to the first chapter, where Eliza decides to go.





	1. New York

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this fic more than a year ago and nearly scrapped it several times as our world changed dramatically. Ultimately I decided to keep it. It is, after all, somewhat about a nostalgia for the present. Not to be pretentious. Ahem. Anyway, as of posting, this fic is just over 40k and nearly finished, so please bother me if I don't update regularly. Happy reading!

“Oh Eliza. Congratulations. When my daughters are older, I hope they’re just like you. You’re such an amazing role model.”

The Schuyler Mansion was awash with bright summer dresses and patterned button-downs as guests flowed freely through the spacious rooms. For the first time in her life, Eliza was at the centre of the melee, and she really wasn’t enjoying it. Still, she smiled politely and thanked the woman who had accosted her. She didn’t remember her name, though she knew they’d met before. Probably the wife of one of her father’s work associates. Eliza used to remember that sort of thing, but lately, she hadn’t been trying as hard. Not that anyone noticed. They were too busy congratulating her while inwardly applauding themselves for being respectable enough to be invited into the fold by the legendary Schuylers. Her thoughts didn’t used to be so uncharitable either. 

“Eliza!” That was Henrietta, another well-meaning woman wearing too much make-up. Eliza vaguely remembered her from long-winded speeches at high school PTO events. Nevertheless, Henrietta gave her a big hug, as if it hadn’t been years since they’d last met. “Congratulations! You’re going to be an amazing psychologist. What a solid career choice. You’re going to make your family so proud.”

“I’m very interested in psychology,” Eliza said, and it sounded defensive even to her own ears. She didn’t choose her major at Smith based on what her father wanted. It just happened that his wishes and hers often lined up.

Henrietta smiled at her a little condescendingly, though she probably thought it looked conspiratorial. Her voice dropped to a very audible whisper. “Now, do you have a man in your life yet?”

“Not yet,” and Eliza hated how it sounded like she was waiting for it, but she couldn’t just say no. ‘No’ was Angelica’s territory; Eliza’s was ‘not yet’. Besides, she did want a husband, and as much as she knew that wasn’t a bad thing, she didn’t like that she couldn’t honestly shut down this woman and her complacent smile. Eliza hadn’t ever resented her own natural kindness and empathy, but something about the empty whirling of tonight was making her feel a little dizzy with the pressure.

“Well, you’ll find someone soon enough,” Henrietta said reassuringly, as if Eliza had been confiding her doubts to her. “You’re such a good, kind person, Eliza. You make such good decisions with your life. All you need is a little patience, and everything will work out.”

“I know. Thank you for your advice. Enjoy the party.” Eliza said automatically, feeling a hole where her sincerity usually rested. She breathed a sigh of relief as Henrietta disappeared back into the herd of exceptionally dressed people. She closed her eyes for a second. For a while, Eliza had actually been looking forward to her college graduation party. She was proud of her degree. She may not have studied law and graduated in three years like Angelica, but she had worked hard and enjoyed feeling like she was getting closer to being able to help people. She had expected her graduation to feel just like a normal party, with maybe a little extra attention that she wasn’t used to.

Instead, it had turned into this. 

She slipped towards the edge of the opulent Schuyler parlour and snagged a glass of wine, despite the fact that she didn’t really drink. Everyone was talking about what good choices she had made, how solid her degree was, how happy she’d be. It should have made her feel good. Instead, she just felt empty. She’d never wanted to be powerful like Angelica or rebellious like Peggy, but she didn’t want whatever this was either. 

“You okay?” It was Angelica. Of course it was. Her sister looked stunning, her rose summer dress off-setting her dark, flawless skin. She wasn’t wearing her customary heels, but she still seemed to tower above others in the room. Eliza let out another breath.

“I guess. I don’t know what I expected. I’m just being silly.”

“You don’t like everyone fawning over you.” Angelica smiled gently at her, but Eliza shook her head.

“It’s not that.”

“I know it isn’t.” Angelica drew her over to the sheltered staircase in the corner that was out of sight of the main event. She sat them both down on one of the steps. “It’s how they look at you. Like they can see your whole life laid out before you and they know exactly where it will lead. Like every silly little thing they know about you adds up to create some definitive answer to what you will do. They look at you like they know who you are.”

Usually Eliza was the one who was most perceptive when it came to emotions, but Angelica was on target this time. “You don’t mind it.”

“Oh, I mind. I’ve just decided to play with it. Turn the tables on them every so often.”

“They think I do everything right.”

Angelica laughed. “That’s just in comparison to me.”

“Like everything else.” Eliza said, almost to her herself. 

“Eliza.” Angelica put her arm around her, and Eliza leaned into her big sister. “That’s stupid of them. We both know that. You, me, and Peggy. We’re the Schuyler sisters. Three parts of a whole. There is nothing to compare.”

Eliza could no longer count the number of times Angelica had said something along those lines to her and Peggy. It used to make her feel good, comforted. It didn’t anymore. 

“Ugh, my problems are so ridiculous, Ange. I’m sick of being seen as the one who does everything right, but I don’t actually want to do anything wrong.”

“It doesn’t have to be something wrong. Just do what you want for a little while. Not cocaine. Don’t do cocaine.” 

Eliza laughed. “Why on earth would I want to do cocaine, Ange?”  
She shrugged. “It has its moments.”

Eliza froze. “What?”

Angelica grinned at her. “Shhh. It was only once. I’m not an idiot.”

“Sure. No wonder I’m the good one.”

“Ha. Don’t tell Father.”

“I’m not a tattle-tale.”

“No. We both know that’s Peggy.” They smiled at each other, sharing in the silent flow of fond memories. Eliza felt a little better. Still strangely empty, but a little better able to face the rest of the party. 

“Thanks, Ange.” She made to get up, but her sister caught her hand.

“You don’t have to go back in there if you don’t want to. You could run away.”

No, Angelica could run away. Peggy could run away. “It would be rude.”

“Come on. Let’s go hide in the old treehouse.”

“Ange, we would break it.”

“And then they would take us to the hospital and we wouldn’t have to go back into the party.”

“That is a terrible idea. Worse than this party. I’m going back in. And I know you’re coming too. You wouldn’t miss a chance to network with Father’s minions.”

Angelica made a face, but she got off the steps. “You know what? I take it back. You should definitely try cocaine. Ow!” Eliza elbowed her in the ribs.

They drifted apart once in the parlour. Eliza faced a few more conversations, smiled and thanked people in all the right places, felt like she was drifting, not nearly as present as she usually was. Eventually, she wandered over to the fireplace and found a small boy and girl seated on the floor who demanded her attention. Their small hands wrinkled her dress as they pulled her down, and she smiled. She kneeled down beside them, glad that their sole desire in life seemed to be to describe to her exactly what kind of horse a clydesdale was and why they were going to own four hundred when they grew up and use them to pull them across the country like in the commercials for that one bank.

Eliza smiled at the plastic horses being galloped along the antique bricks, finding herself wishing she had some clydesdales of her own to take her away. She didn’t know who the parents of these children were, but they didn’t seem present, so Eliza could justify watching the kids to make sure they were okay while they started gladiator battles between their horses. They didn’t ask her about her career, or about a boyfriend. They didn’t assume that she was perfect and happy. They just assumed she wanted to play with plastic horses. 

And they were right.

From time to time, Eliza saw Angelica flitting through the pulsing mass of the party. She was radiant and charming, bracelets flashing silver as her hands flew through air in a dance of intelligence and charm. Eliza could tell, even too far away to hear the words, that she was subtly seducing everyone she spoke to, bending them to her unyielding dreams. Angelica enjoyed playing with their perceptions, presenting certain sides of herself and shielding others. Even knowing the ins and outs of her sister’s games, Eliza couldn’t help but be transfixed. Angelica was brilliant and flawed and far more interesting than Eliza would ever be. Eliza had listened to many people warn against the sort of ambition that Angelica possessed. They said it made you unhappy, unsatisfied. 

Eliza had never been ambitious. She had never been vain or proud or envious. She had never woken up in an unfamiliar place having made terrible, unremembered decisions the night before. She had achievable goals, a loving family, an appreciation of the present.

She wasn’t happy either.

“It’s time for Blackie to wake up.” The little boy prodded Eliza’s horse, and she pulled herself out of her reverie.

She made a yawning noise and picked up her horse. “What are we going to do this morning, my little herd?”

“Anything you want, Blackie.”

“Let’s go on an adventure today.” 

As if.

***

The next morning, Eliza stood in front of the gilded mirror in her childhood bedroom, fussing with the clip that held back her dark hair and trying to force herself into a better mood. She surveyed the light blue and white dress she had put on for church and took extra time applying light touches of makeup to avoid going downstairs.

She really hadn’t expected the party to affect her so much. She thought she might feel weird at the event itself, but that by the next day she would be back to normal. Unfortunately, she felt no better in the light of day. She looked into her own reflection, seeing a kind, reasonably pretty face looking back at her. She could see herself twenty years from now, still kind and reasonably pretty. She could foresee nothing that would change her. The thought was terrifying.

Despite her minor existential crisis, fussing over her mascara could only take so long. She wasn’t nearly mentally ready when she finally made her way down the stately Schuyler stairs and into the gleaming kitchen. 

Her mother’s love of cooking had resulted in the room becoming a veritable showcase of glittering stainless steel, from oven to tea kettle. The space stood starkly at odds with the much more traditional decor of the rest of the Schuyler ancestral home. Angelica, already seated at the counter and absorbed in her iPhone, looked most at home amidst the sparkling, state of the art appliances.

“Are you having breakfast, Ange?” Eliza asked while she turned on the tea kettle and fixed herself some granola and yoghurt. 

“Coffee.” Her sister replied, as monosyllabic as she always was in the mornings.

Before Eliza could ask another question that was likely to aggravate her tired sister, the door to the kitchen opened once more and their parents entered, both looking smartly dressed and significantly more awake than Angelica.

“Oh good, Eliza, you’re up. You look wonderful this morning. Are you ready to go?” Philip Schuyler didn’t seem to notice the fact that she was clearly in the middle of making breakfast. He tended to miss details like that, but Catherine was much more observant in that area. She nudged her husband fondly before checking the time on her phone.

“Philip, dear, let her eat her breakfast. Do you want to take your own car, Eliza? We’re going to head out because I want to talk to Bertha before the service. We had her over last week and I served the meringue. I promised that I’d give her the recipe.”

Angelica’s knee was jiggling impatiently, but she pointedly didn’t look up from her phone. She and Mother had never really seen eye to eye. Even the smallest traits of the one seemed always to get on the nerves of the other. Eliza, much friendlier with her mother and also longing to eat her breakfast, thought the suggestion was a good one. “That sounds great. I’ll be there soon.”

“Don’t be late,” Father called, already heading towards the door. Mother smiled softly at Eliza, walking over to kiss her on the forehead.

“Eliza’s never late, don’t worry.” Eliza suppressed a wince. Of course she was late to things sometimes. She wasn’t perfect. Her mother didn’t notice, instead turning to her sister. “Are you certain you don’t want to come, Angelica?”

Angelica smiled a little stiffly. “I’m going to get some work done here. You three enjoy yourselves.”

Eliza seated herself next to Angelica at the counter once their mother had left the room, catching a glimpse of the Washington Post on Angelica’s phone as she did so. She took a bite of granola. “You know you don’t really go to church to enjoy yourself.”

Angelica laughed drily. “Mother does. She loves showing off. She can’t wait for today because you’ll be there on display. Peg had to run back after the party last night so she knows she can’t get the full set, but she can’t resist trying for me anyway.”

“Don’t be so harsh.” Sometimes Eliza couldn’t imagine how hard it would be to live in her sister’s brain. So intelligent, so cynical, so often unhappy. Today, however, she got her point.

“Don’t let people step on you.” Angelica retorted. Eliza put down her spoon and put her head in her hands.

“They just don’t always see me. And Mother’s not doing this to me. I want to go to church today. I need the guidance.”

“I understand.”

Eliza shook her head. “You really don’t.”

Angelica laughed at that, the dry laugh that really wasn’t very humorous. “No, I really don’t, but you do. I hope it helps.”

“Thanks.” And Angelica went back to her coffee and news, and Eliza went back to her granola and yoghurt and wondered how sometimes she could feel so very close to her sister and so very far away at the same time.

***

Many people in Eliza’s life told her that she was a stabilising force, that being around her created calm. No one ever thought that about Angelica, who radiated energy and intensity. But as Eliza manoeuvred her cumbersome minivan into the church parking lot, she could feel the calming effects of her sister’s presence in her life, even when she didn’t come along. Eliza took a deep breath. She was ready.

The church itself was nearly as old as the Schuyler family, weathered, fading stone standing proudly amidst a secluded woods which welcomed the lack of change over the centuries. Eliza loved it. The familiar woody, damp smells always pulled her back into the worship of her childhood.

She met with several old families on her way inside the building, stopping each time to chat politely, enquire about their children and receive their congratulations, somehow both fervent and uninterested. Eliza knew many of them preferred scandal and drama to her uneventful little life. This was proved by the number of people who enquired about Angelica’s absence under the pretext of concern. 

Eliza did her best to wipe these uncharitable thoughts from her mind. It was perfectly natural to be curious, and she didn’t want to taint the rest of the world with her own tumultuous mood.

However, by the sixth person who asked her this, Eliza was getting a little fed up. “I saw your older sister at the party last night. Is she already here?” Sarah Clinton, the wife of the eminent and, in Eliza’s opinion, rather morally suspect George Clinton, asked with sweet venom.

Eliza had nearly made to the chapel, but she had been intercepted right before she could escape through the door, Mrs. Clinton’s formidable green handbag blocking her path. She should just tell her the truth and be done with it. She didn’t want to lie in church, and she knew Angelica didn’t care what Sarah Clinton thought of her anyway, but she couldn’t do it. Feeling the frazzled nerves of last night returning, she hastened towards her sanctuary. “The service is about to start, Mrs. Clinton. I’d be delighted to talk later though.” 

So much for not lying in church.

She barely found a seat in the pews before the preacher began, not sitting remotely near her parents who were hemmed in by friends and admirers further up. Taking a few deep, calming breaths, Eliza tried to allow the words of the sermon to wash over her and her mind to clear. Often, she didn’t listen very carefully to the contents of the sermon. She knew the Bible, and she knew her own interpretation of it. It was the sense of peaceful solitude amidst a community that allowed her to feel close to God, not the words of men.

For several minutes, it worked. Eliza felt peace wash through her, and she felt more comfortable in her skin that she ever did outside these ancient walls. Eventually, however, the words of the sermon began to creep into her ears.

“Doing good is not enough for God. It is important, it is good to do good, but if you do not let Jesus into your heart, if you are not sincere and complete in your embracing of the Saviour and all that He stands for than that is little better than overt sin. Unless you…”

Eliza shifted in her seat, blocking out the sermon again. Perhaps it was prideful to say that she was a good person, but she didn’t see any way around it. And no one else seemed to see her sins, anyway. No one else saw adventure or passion or a dash of recklessness when they looked into her face. Perhaps she imagined it in herself. Maybe she really was just good. She should have been praying for God to humble her. She should have been opening her heart to Him and pledging to be better.

All at once, she didn’t want to.

She didn’t want to be good and right. She didn’t want to be unassailable and ethereal. She wanted to be flesh and blood, horribly mortal.

She preemptively apologised to God, asked Him to help her find her own truth, not that of the preacher or even the Bible. She hoped He would understand.

By then, the pews were beginning to clear. Eliza left quickly, unwilling to find her parents or talk to anyone. She felt as though she had made an important decision even as the world bustled around her, unchanged.

Sarah Clinton’s horrible handbag stopped her once more, followed by the woman herself who wrapped Eliza up in a highly unwelcome hug. “I’m so glad we have a minute to talk. It’s been so long, and I’m so eager to hear about you and your family. Congratulations again on your degree. Have you considered using your psychological knowledge to help others with their faith? Some these days have been led so far..it’s a shame. A sickness, really.” The ensuing conversational leap was not subtle. “I never did see Angelica here. Is she ill?”

Eliza could have pretended not to understand the loaded question. She could have told Mrs. Clinton that Angelica had the flu, or even that she had left for the city to get back to her job. She might even have gotten away with pretending she had been there all along. She could have fielded the question smoothly, deflected it away. “No, very observant of you. She wasn’t here. See, she’s an atheist. She’s also perfectly healthy and a much better human being than you could ever hope to be. Thank you for asking.”

Eliza smiled, very genuinely, at Sarah Clinton before turning on her heel to walk back to her beat-up mini van, considering whether God counted knocking Sarah Clinton down a peg as a good deed. Certainly, it could be no sin.

The serene, upper-class section of Albany sailed past Eliza’s window as she drove out into the country towards the Schuyler mansion. She took in the views of thin women jogging in expensive leggings, and children playing on the priciest new motorised toys. Men in suits drove by with patriarchal propriety over their neighbourhood. 

Despite her current feelings of alienation, Eliza knew that she looked like she belonged here, driving through these neighbourhoods. Maybe she was not quite white enough, although close enough for blind, judgemental eyes. But even her harsh analysis of many of these people couldn’t talk away from the fact that she liked the serenity, the routine, the happy shouts of well-cared-for children. She could see herself here, ten years from now with children in the back seat of the van, taking them home from Sunday school. It wasn’t a bad thought.

The houses along the road became more scattered as she drove further into the country. The turn-off for her home was approaching. Eliza looked out the window, feeling the early summer breeze on her face. Birds chirped and whistled between sun-dappled leaves. The turn-off for her home was just around the next bend.

She turned on her turn signal.

And didn’t turn.

She kept driving south, hardly taking notice of what she was doing. She fully expected herself to do a U-turn in the next few minutes in order to be home for lunch. Her little joy ride was nothing more than one of her occasional flights of fancy. 

She didn’t turn. 

She kept driving. The birds kept singing and the wind kept rustling. Every few minutes, Eliza found herself glancing down at her hands on the steering wheel, expecting them to begin to turn around.

She kept driving.

It didn’t feel like some kind of great act of defiance, not when she could have turned back at any time, not when it was still completely in her power to go back home. She didn’t know what she was doing. She wasn’t even really doing anything, just driving south. She hadn’t made any decisions, hadn’t taken any sort of stand.

She wasn’t going to turn around. 

She came to accept this fact after about two hours of driving, after turning back onto the highway and watching signs for New York City grow more and more frequent. Still not really able to believe she was doing this, Eliza pressed the buttons on her dashboard to call Angelica. Soon, her older sister’s slightly crackly voice filled the car, and Eliza smiled automatically.

“ ‘Liza? Did you stop by the grocery store or something? I thought you’d be home by now. Mother and Father were back ages ago. I need someone to help me procrastinate the mountain of work I’m supposed to be doing.”

Eliza would have loved to just let Angelica talk. Her sister was funny and eloquent and had such a way of making even the hardest things seem fun. But instead she blurted it out:

“I’m going on a road trip.”

There was a moment’s pause. And then, “Cool. When are you leaving?”

Eliza swallowed hard. Saying it out loud would make it real. “I’ve already left, actually.” It sounded even more stupid than in her head.

“I didn’t notice you packing.”

Eliza found herself smiling at the absurdity of it all. “I, uh, didn’t. I just left. From church.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know.” This was a terrible idea. It was so stupid and childish. She felt like a six year old taking off down the block with a backpack. She didn’t even have a backpack. Eliza was on the verge of turning the car around when Angelica began to laugh. It started out pretty contained, but it had soon expanded into a full belly laugh, her sister gasping through the phone.

“That’s amazing! Oh my God, Eliza. This is best thing I’ve ever heard. I love you so much.”

Eliza was blushing. “I’m being stupid.”

Angelica was still laughing. “Yes! Totally illogical. Isn’t it amazing?”

“Honestly, mostly it’s just driving.” It wasn’t bad though.

“Just you wait. Wait, shit. Do you want me to tell our parents?”

“They’re going to freak out that I’m running away.”

“No, they won’t. It’s you. I bet you they’ll call it soul-searching.”

Eliza sighed. “Great. Just what I need. A hallmark movie journey to find my true identity.”

“Fuck that. Just live.”

A few hours ago, the advice would have felt inapplicable, true only in Angelica’s world, but never Eliza’s. Now, she was driving down New York state in an ageing minivan with no supplies and no plan. 

“Thanks. I’ll call you when I know where I’ll be tonight. Hopefully a bed.” They both giggled, and Eliza didn’t stop even after she ended the call.

The New York summer sun beat down on the car, and Eliza rolled down the windows.

***

She was lying in the grass at a truck stop eating Pringles when her phone rang, the caller ID reading “my father”. She closed her eyes and rolled onto her back before answering.

“Father?”

“Eliza? How are you? Angelica told us you decided to go on a little trip.”

“Sorry I didn’t say anything.”

“That alright, Eliza. A little soul-searching sounds like just the thing after graduating college. I’m proud of you.” Eliza mentally reminded herself to tell Angelica that she had been spot on with the word choice. 

“Still, I should have said something.”

Eliza could practically see her father waving her off. “Listen, Eliza. I wanted to wish you luck on your trip, but that’s not the only reason I called. You see, the funniest thing happened today. I had just had a conversation with Angelica about you taking a trip when the Lafayettes called. You remember the Lafayettes don’t you?”

“Sure.” She didn’t.

“Well, anyway, they’re still living in France, but it turns out their son is in Philadelphia. Apparently, he’s being chaperoned, but we got to talking, and I mentioned you heading south, and they were wondering if you could check in on him. You know how parents worry.” He said it conspiratorially, as if Eliza was somehow an honorary parent. Or perhaps it was Philip Schuyler’s passive-aggressive brand of guilt-tripping.

Eliza did not particularly want to spend her time away from home with whoever the Lafayettes’ kid was, but she also didn’t have a destination in mind. “I’ll see if I can get over there.” 

“You’re the best, Eliza.”

She really wasn’t, but she thanked her father anyway and hung up the phone, popping a Pringle into her mouth and burying her head in the grass. She didn’t know how long she lay like that, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes before her phone rang again.

“Seriously?” She said to herself, checking the caller ID. Unknown Number. Well, that was interesting. She picked it up. “Hello?”

A french-accented voice started speaking rapidly down the line. Eliza had to strain slightly to catch all the words. “So I think my parents have recruited you to come spy on me, but you really don’t have to do that because I’m a completely competent person and there is nothing to worry about going on here.” There was a crash on his end. “Merde! Sorry, like I said, we’re all good. No need to babysit. Um, why aren’t you saying anything? You are Elizabeth Schuyler, yes?”

Now Eliza was thoroughly confused. This man did not sound like someone being chaperoned. “Oh, yes, that’s me. You must be who my father called about. Lafayette?”

“Oui, so glad I was not just talking to a random stranger. That would have been awkward. Anyways, you do not need to come. Me, Hercules and Alexander have it all under control. My parents worry, that is all. I am 20 years of age, not a bébé.”

“Right.” So the Lafayette’s parents were probably just being overprotective, rich parents who let their kid run wild and then got scared. Things were starting to make sense again. “I wouldn’t be a very good babysitter anyway. I’m only a couple years older than you. Of course, I do sometimes feel like I should have someone making adult decisions for me.” She laughed a little, and Lafayette did too.

“I like you,” he declared after a minute-long phone conversation. “You should come anyway. Wait, let me ask.” His voice became muffled. “Alexander, Hercules, how do you feel about Elizabeth Schuyler coming over tonight?”

“Who’s that?” A voice replied.

“She’s cool.” Lafayette asserted, despite knowing nothing about her.

“Ok. Sounds fun.” The people whom Eliza presumed to be Alexander and Hercules responded. They were seriously going to invite her over with ever having spoken to her? Weird.

“So, what do you say?” Lafayette prompted.

It would be really stupid to go. Sure, her father knew this Lafayette’s parents, but she would still be walking into a house with three strange men, the sort of strange men who would invite a strange woman over to the house.

“Sure. Text me the address?”

Her phone buzzed a minute later, and she discarded the Pringles. Lafayette had put a house emoji at the end of his address. She walked back to her car, feeling like an idiot and smiling from ear to ear.


	2. Philadelphia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliza meets the boys for the first time. Sparks and fists fly, and a road trip begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing longer chapters takes longer to edit. Who would have guessed? Also, apparently I can't remember how many seats are in a minivan.
> 
> Enjoy!

The Lafayette house wasn’t as massive as the ones in Eliza’s neighbourhood, but she could still smell the money on it. Whereas the Schuyler Estate was a proud, ancestral home, furnished with luxurious 19th century goods and proudly displaying the original memoir written by the Schuyler who had escaped slavery, the Lafayette house showed no hint of the past. The family’s wealth instead had been streamlined into clean lines and solar panels. Eliza thought she could make out a garden on the third floor roof as well. Not ostentatious, but very expensive.

No sooner had she pulled her car into the driveway, her minivan feeling especially clunky and dated, than the front door burst open, spilling three men into the yard.

The first must be Lafayette. She wasn’t certain how she knew this. It could have been because he looked the youngest, but it also had something to do with his bearing. Awkward only because he knew what true propriety entailed. His tight curls were pulled back in a messy bun, and his smile was wide as he ran up to Eliza, kissing her on both cheeks. Having grown up in a family that exposed her to many different customs, Eliza didn’t flinch, although Lafayette did seem slightly unnecessarily enthusiastic. While he greeted her effusively, she looked past him to the other two men.

One was tall and broad, a beanie fit snugly over his head. He had his hands stuffed into the pockets of a patterned hoodie. Very casual, but Eliza immediately liked his style. He waved at her. “I’m Mulligan. Lafayette’s chaperone.” He smiled wryly at her and waved again, making no effort to pry his apparent charge away, despite the fact that the man had been hugging her for at least fifteen seconds by this point.

“Excuse me, Lafayette.” Eliza’s rescuer came in the form of the third man, who pushed Lafayette gently to the side and held out his hand. He was shorter than the other two, with long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. Deep brown eyes gleamed with mirth, intelligence and something Eliza could not place.

“Alexander Hamilton, at your service.” He bowed a little bit. Eliza should have found it disgustingly antiquated and mocking. She didn’t.

“Elizabeth Schuyler. It’s a pleasure.” They were both smiling as if it were a joke, but Eliza’s heart was pounding. “Call me Eliza,” she said, just to break the tension.

“Eliza.” Her name sounded different on his tongue. She found herself thinking that he made it fit her differently. But that was ridiculous, and she was almost relieved when Alexander turned his intense gaze away from her.

“Lafayette! Aren’t you going to invite our lovely guest inside?” Eliza started to blush, but the boys were already rushing back inside, and she hurried to catch up.

The interior of Lafayette’s house matched the outside. More clean lines, splashes of bright colours on couches that looked a little too slick to be comfortable. Thankfully, the surfaces themselves were covered in stuff: books in several languages, a jumble of what looked like a combination of scrabble and bananagrams pieces, swatches of fabric and an empty bottle of whisky. That was just what Eliza could take in before Lafayette spun her around and pushed her onto the couch. Alexander threw himself next to her and Eliza tensed a little bit, but he didn’t move any closer. Mulligan sat on top of the table with Lafayette. It was a little like she was being interrogated.

“What are you going to do?” Lafayette asked without any lead-in.

Eliza struggled for an answer. Despite it being her choice to come, she had no idea what they wanted from her. “Well, I was thinking of becoming a therapist.” Immediately, it felt like the wrong answer.

Lafayette shook his head. “ _Non_. What are you going to do today?”

That question wasn’t really any less difficult. “Well, I was kind of starting a road trip, but my father wanted me to stop by your house.” It sounded so weird to say, especially having met Lafayette. Sure, he was younger than her and a little bit hands on, but she had no idea what his parents thought Eliza could do about that.

Lafayette frowned, backing off a little. “I am sorry about that. My parents do not always have the greatest sense of boundaries. They should not have asked that of you.” Eliza decided not to comment on Lafayette’s own obvious deficiencies in that area. “You can go if you would like. I would not tell.” He grinned at her conspiratorially and Eliza found herself smiling back.

“But you don’t have to leave!” Alexander said in a hurry, seeming to reach for her hand and then pulling back just as fast. “You can squad here with us if you want.”

“What?”

Mulligan rolled his eyes and explained. “Alex likes to call it squadding, what he and I do, instead of squatting. Since we both live in Lafayette’s house for free, we’re kind of squatters, but we’re also a squad, so it’s cool. I mean, technically it’s just him since I’m getting paid to live here, but still.

“It sounds better if there are more of us.” Alexander was smiling right into Eliza’s face, his eyes dancing, and it was a little overwhelming. She could guess who the scrabble set belonged to, though.

“You’re being paid?” Eliza asked Mulligan, trying to focus on the conversation.

Lafayette sniffed, pushed a book out of his way and crossed his ankles. “Hercules Mulligan is my chaperone in America, technically. He is paid to keep me out of trouble and help me learn English.” Lafayette’s English was obviously more than adequate already. “In reality, he buys me drinks and uses the money he earns to run an online fashion business.” He dropped his show of primness and his face broke into that huge grin again. “A how-you-say, mutually beneficial relationship.”

“Symbiotic relationship, Laf.”

Mulligan’s laugh was deep and warm. “Alex, I love how you say that to Laf as if symbiotic is a normal word and not like directly from a biology textbook.

Alexander shrugged, bumping into Eliza slightly as he did so. “It’s more musical.”

“Musical, right. You’re totally one of those people who want their partners to talk medical jargon in bed with them,” Mulligan said with a wicked smile, clearly trying to embarrass Alexander. Eliza found herself blushing, but the boys didn’t seem to care.

Lafayette said, “Those kinds of people exist?” at the same time as Alexander said:

“Nah, not patient enough,” and then snorted at his own pun.

The conversation continued, everyone bouncing off of everyone else. Eliza didn’t think she’d ever met three people who talked so quickly to each other. It was a bit like watching professional tennis, the volleys blurring before her eyes. Still, she found herself drawn into their banter. After only a few minutes of conversation, Eliza knew beyond a doubt they were the most intelligent people she had ever met, excluding Angelica. She wondered what her sister would think of them as she watched their conversation boomerang from topic to topic, switching easily between wordplay, philosophy and sexual innuendo. 

Actually, she didn’t wonder - she knew - what her sister would do in this situation. It wasn’t Eliza’s style at all though, so she took herself by surprise when she interjected into the conversation:

“Do you guys want to come with me?” Her own bravery astonished her. Apparently it surprised the boys too as they stared at her blankly for a moment. She fought the urge to laugh it off. “On my road trip. Do you want to come?”

“I have to be in LA in two weeks. I got invited to this fashion conference thing,” Mulligan said, a little shyly.

Alexander jumped on it. “We can drive to California! I’ve always wanted to see…” He trailed off awkwardly, but Lafayette picked up the slack.

“This would be an excellent way to complete my education,” he said.

“What education?” Mulligan retorted. Lafayette slapped him lightly.

“My anthropological study of stupid Americans, of course. We could leave tomorrow afternoon. In the morning, there is a protest we’d like to attend.”

“What for?” Eliza asked, curious. She’d never been to a protest.

“Black Lives Matter,” Alexander said, squirming into a more upright position on the couch. “They’ve been planning one for months. Did you know that the rate of black people being shot by police is three times that of white people? And that blacks are also twice as likely to be unarmed when they are shot? Of course it’s not just about police brutality. The racial caste system has existed since the founding of our country…”

He was a good speaker, even sitting pretzel style on a couch covered with miscellaneous junk and pausing repeatedly to pull loose strands of hair out of his own mouth. The longer he talked, the more animated he got, several times having to pull back at the last second to avoid slapping Eliza across the face.

Eventually, Mulligan managed to curtail Alexander’s impassioned rant. Eliza was a little disappointed. She could have listened forever, but Mulligan brought her back to the real world. “Say, Eliza, did you actually bring anything with you for this trip?”

Eliza blushed crimson, shaking her head. She looked like such an idiot. Alexander was laughing. He nudged her in the side. “My kind of girl.”

“What, unclothed?” Eliza shot back before she could think about it. For a second, Alexander looked stunned. But then he saw that she was smiling at him and he smiled too, a little warmer, less sharp.

“I was actually thinking adventurous, but if that’s the conclusion you want to jump to…” Then he winked, and all four of them were laughing and Eliza was trying to contain the swooping sensation she felt in her stomach at the images she was conjuring up.

Mulligan was the first to pull himself together. “Seriously, though. I have tons of stuff up in my office. You can take some of it.”

“Really?” It was hard for Eliza to believe that this young man would have clothes that would fit her, but she followed him up the shining spiral staircase anyway, not paying much attention to Lafayette’s suggestions in relation to Mulligan’s bedroom.

Mulligan’s office, as it turned out, was basically the largest walk-in-closet Eliza had ever seen. Eliza’s mother would have swooned. Racks upon racks of clothing, organised, as far as Eliza could tell, by occasion and by colour, although not by gender.

Mulligan pushed her gently towards a partly obscured, curtained off zone in the corner. “Go ahead. I’ll hand you things to try on.”

Eliza stepped behind the curtain, looking herself up and down in the full-sized mirror. She was still wearing her church dress, wrinkled from driving. Her hair was falling out of its tie. This was what Alexander saw when he met her, she thought as she fixed it, Then she closed her eyes, leaning against the mirror.

She needed to breathe.

Part of Eliza couldn’t even recognise herself, her choices today felt so radically different from the ones she would have made yesterday. But by far the biggest part, scarily enough, didn’t feel like it was odd at all. Sure, she had attached herself to three strange young man, one of whom was currently using her as a dress-up doll. But she found she didn’t mind. She hardly knew anything about Mulligan, Lafayette or Alexander, and they knew little about her, but, inexplicably, she trusted them. She liked them too, in a way she couldn’t remember liking anyone apart from her sisters. Was she wrong? Was this a trap? All her life, she had been taught to be careful. To be modest and chaste. Angelica and Peggy had chafed against this upbringing, but Eliza had never minded. Until now. 

Several different articles of clothing had by this time layered themselves on top of the curtain rod. Eliza shook herself. One thing at a time. She pulled on the first skirt, then found a top to match. To her surprise, nearly every item fit, and even better than that, they felt like her. Mulligan had chosen a lot of blue, white and other pastels for the various blouses and dresses he passed her. At first glance, most of the articles seemed standard, conservative even. But without fail, everything she put on revealed some hidden interest. The skirts had pockets, the shirts had bright streaks of colour or revealed skin in flattering, unexpected ways. As she gained confidence with the choices, she started modelling for Mulligan who was sitting cross-legged on the floor with his hands steepled in front of his face, critiquing his creations far more harshly than Eliza would have. 

“How did you get into fashion design?” She asked as she swirled in a periwinkle skirt that shimmered when it caught the light.

“That one’s great for dancing. My mother was a seamstress. She was from Ireland. I used to help her out when her hands or her eyes got tired. Eventually, I started experimenting with fabrics and putting different combinations together. I would never have pursued it though if Laf hadn’t offered. I was prepared to just wait on him and make sure he didn’t get into too much trouble, but it didn’t turn out that way. And the online business somehow took off. A real designer noticed me, and I got an invite to this conference. It’s LA, not New York or Paris, but…more than I ever hoped.” Eliza noticed how warmly he spoke of his friend and benefactor. Thus far, Lafayette had seemed a little overbearing to Eliza, but Mulligan clearly loved him. He didn’t talk as much as the other two in the group, but he seemed so happy. It made Eliza feel strangely isolated. She pushed down the unworthy thought.

“You have exceptional friends.” Eliza said a few minutes later, once she had changed into a casual white blouse and the most comfortable pair of leggings she had ever worn.

Mulligan chuckled. “That’s one word for it.” Together, they began to sort through the clothes Eliza had chosen to bring from the rejects. Mulligan generously provided her with a suitcase from Lafayette’s attic. Eliza still felt the need to blush whenever she thought about how unprepared she had been when she’d driven off.

Finally, Eliza sat down and ran her hands over the clothes she had chosen, a little awed. “You’ve only known me for like an hour. How could you tell what I would like?” The room was so full of clothing of all kinds that she couldn’t be too surprised that he had found things that she could wear, but she had never expected to be so enchanted with her makeshift wardrobe.

Mulligan shrugged modestly. “I’ve always had a knack. And I practice. For some of the online purchases, I make recommendations based on Facebook pages. Besides, I like you.”

Eliza stopped folding clothes. “Why?”

He shrugged again. “I just do.”

“Thank you. But again, why? I’m no one special.” Not like Angelica or Peggy. Eliza was nice, but she was destined. She was good, but she would never be great.

“If you don’t mind me saying, I think you’re wrong. You look around and see the world and, like, you appreciate it. And you don’t show off. You’re smart. Back in the living room, you could even keep up with Alexander, but you didn’t need to let people know that. You could just be. So I guess that’s why. Sorry. I don’t want you to feel like I’m analysing you. I’m not like certified or anything, you know.” He ducked his head in the first sign of shyness Eliza had seen from him. She wanted to reassure him, but she couldn’t seem to find the words.

Finally, she choked out: “Thank you. I don’t—that was incredibly kind.” They finished packing up the clothing and gathering a few bathroom essentials without really saying any more, but the silence wasn’t awkward. Downstairs with his friends, Mulligan had been brash and loud. But Eliza had found his quieter side, and when they finally descended the stairs to choruses of ‘what took you so longs’, Eliza felt significantly more at ease.

That night, they cracked open beers and a game of scrabble. Eliza only drank one, and then watched as the boys became sillier and sillier with their attempts at clearly non-Oxford dictionary words. Lafayette launched a passionate defence of his use of French in the game, citing English being his second language as an excuse. This was heartily shouted down by all involved, and Alexander pointed out that the very complexity of Lafayette’s argument undermined the claim that he was not sufficiently proficient in English.

The more Alexander drank, the more eloquent he seemed to become. Eliza found this slightly annoying and more than a little impressive. He also became more tactile, which she was not complaining about at all. By eleven, he was curled up practically in her lap, and she could totally see his scrabble tiles. By eleven thirty, Lafayette had wedged himself on her other side, and she was cheating off of both their tiles. Mulligan had clearly caught on and kept winking at her every time she made a particularly prescient move. He kept his own tiles much closer to his chest.

It was one of those nights where the atmosphere itself was intoxicating. No word game with wooden tiles had ever inspired such hilarity, and Eliza found herself joining in with a will. It didn’t hurt that she was increasingly frustrating Lafayette with preventative moves. He was utterly at a loss as to how she kept anticipating him.

Alexander was a little harder to bamboozle, and he could often sidestep her moves with words that required verification in the dictionary. He gloried in showing off while simultaneously burrowing closer and closer to Eliza. Perhaps it should have scared her just how natural it felt, but she was too happy to care.

“Are you cheating?” Alexander finally asked, peering up at her with his fathomless brown eyes, looking like he had just discovered a secret of the universe.

Eliza couldn’t help it. She giggled. And then she caught eyes with Mulligan which was a terrible idea because then he started laughing. Alexander tried to swat her but couldn’t get a good angle, and Lafayette comically dove on top of his own tiles, ostensibly to hide them from her. But of course he overshot and skidded onto the board, wrecking the game and causing all four of them to dissolve into hysterics.

It was several minutes before they had recovered enough to traipse up to bed. Eliza’s sides hurt from laughing. She felt light and happy, but also full of that indefinable feeling that gave everything around her a dreamlike clarity. Sleepily, she said good-night to Mulligan and Lafayette as they peeled off to their rooms. She was so dazed that it took an entire other set of stairs before she fully registered that it was her and Alexander now. They paused on the top floor, turning to one another. The landing was dark, and Alexander’s face was only half illuminated, but she could feel the weight of his eyes. At last, she didn’t feel the need to blush.

“That was amazing,” she said, and she was talking about the whole night, and him, and possibly for the first time, about herself.

He was smiling too, both more widely and more sadly than she was. “It’s wonderful, isn’t it? That feeling. This one. Like you’ve bottled eternity in a single instant. Like your happiness will never end, but somehow it’s also already a memory.”

And she didn’t mind that he was so much more articulate than she was, or that he did everything at a speed she could never comprehend. She didn’t even mind that she was probably no more than a passing flicker in his blurred journey through that eternity of which he spoke.

They stood there on the darkened landing, breathing in the night. His lips barely brushed hers before they broke away to their separate bedrooms, but it was enough.

***

Eliza woke with the sun as she usually did, blinking her eyes against the clean, bright white walls of the bedroom. She dressed slowly, choosing another of Mulligan’s outfits and savouring the feeling of the unknown. For the first time in her life, the world stretched before her without a clear path. She was loving it.

When she made it down to the kitchen, the only place in this house that resembled the Schuyler Mansion in any way, she was surprised to see Alexander already at the table, scribbling away in a notebook. He didn’t notice her entrance until she sat down across from him.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Writing,” he said, stating the obvious and speaking uncharacteristically shortly. He put away the notebook and the gestured towards the pan. “I made breakfast. Help yourself. Laf and Mulligan should be up soon.”

Alexander directed her towards the plates, and both of them scooped up a pile of eggs. They were delicious. Eliza had no idea why she’d assumed that Alexander wouldn’t be one to make his own meals. “These are great. Where did you learn to cook?”

It was a standard compliment question, but Alexander looked down at his plate and became very focused on his food. “I used to help my mother. Didn’t you say you’ve never been to a protest before? I should probably give you some tips. Honestly, I go to them all the time. People think they’re crazy, but they’re usually just really civilised and you get to meet tons of cool people with really interesting perspectives and experiences.” Once he had changed the subject, he talked with gusto, only occasionally pausing to shovel in a few bites of egg, but Eliza wasn’t listening as well as she had been the day before.

She couldn’t help thinking how strange it was that last night in the dark, she had felt a connection with him. Like they understood each other somehow. But now, in the full light of day with all her faculties in top shape, she felt she didn’t know him at all. His hands gesticulated and his eyes glittered with engagement in the conversation, but as much as he seemed to be trying to pull her in, Eliza could sense him closing himself off to her.

In the light of day, this Alexander was obviously more real than the one who had kissed her, and she decided to put the other one out of her mind. So she ate her breakfast and focused his funny, eloquent words and wondered what he was hiding from.

***

Eliza ended up driving to the protest since, as it turned out, Mulligan was the only other person with a license and Lafayette’s blinged up Prius would have been a tight fit. Lafayette used his foreign birth as an excuse for his lack of license as they piled in.

“Stop bullshitting, Laf,” Alexander said, taking the front seat next to Eliza. “We all know that the French drive on the same side of the road. You just think being able to drive yourself places is beneath you.”

“Oh yes?” Lafayette challenged, “And why do you, Alexander, an eminent graduate of Columbia University and all-around talented human being not have mastery of such a common skill as driving?”

Alexander smiled, but Eliza thought it looked a little strange. “There’s a million things I haven’t done. I’ll get there.”

“None of us are getting there if you lot don’t buckle your seat belts,” Eliza said, and the boys sheepishly complied. Lafayette provided directions to the street on which the protest would be taking place while Mulligan, sitting next to him in the middle row of seats, put the finishing touches on some last minute posters. Alexander twisted around in his seat to advise Mulligan on the colour scheme, something the other man did not particularly seem to appreciate.

A few minutes later, Eliza took out a ticket for the parking ramp, and the four of them made their way down to the street, chatting happily as they went. The protest was not yet in full swing, and mostly there were just people milling around and chatting, appreciating each other’s signs. A few organisers mingled with the crowd, refreshing everyone on the rules that must be followed and stressing the peacefulness of the protest.

“A lot of the policemen will fuck us over if they can, so we have to be really careful. We’re protesting violence. We don’t want to cause more even if it’s not our fault.” Alexander was next to her, surveying the blossoming crowd with glowing eyes. “What do you think?”

Eliza knew she had lived a pretty sheltered life. She had traveled, gone on mission trips, even visited the village in China in which she had been born, but she had never seen such diversity of humanity as she was seeing today. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered, not certain if that was the right word.

“It’s vital,” Alexander said.

“Yes.” That was it.

“Am I beautiful?” Lafayette had sauntered over to them. He had inexplicably tied his bushy hair into puffy pigtails and written My Life Matters in some sort of glitter gel pen on his forehead. 

“Stunning,” Eliza said while Alexander jumped in the air to try to locate where Mulligan had wandered off to. 

“Here, _petit lion_.” Lafayette grabbed Alexander under the armpits and hoisted him up to see. Alexander squirmed in protest while Eliza laughed. Mulligan made his way over eventually, finding them by following Alexander’s squeals more than anything. 

The crowd grew gradually, and the three boys met several other people they knew. Eliza hung back, happy to absorb the vitality around her without becoming the centre of anything. Then, the protest began officially, and several different people made short speeches on megaphones. They spoke about the reason for the protest, the deep seeded racial prejudices in the nation that were just as insidious as they had ever been, the need for affirmation of black life and of future change. Eliza was learning a lot, though she still wasn’t certain she grasped the finer points of some of the arguments. Alexander, next to her, was drinking in every word with rapt attention.

“No need to look so starry-eyed,” a young man with light brown skin and a sneer appeared next to Alexander. He turned to glare at the new-comer, unconsciously reaching towards Eliza as he did so. 

“Get the fuck out if you’re not interested in Washington’s speeches, Lee.” Clearly Alexander and this Lee character had met before.

“It’s not just his speeches I’m not interested in, Hamilton. If you’d get your head out of your ass for two minutes, you’d realise that Washington is taking the movement in completely the wrong direction. What we need in order to make progress is a change of leadership.”

“I imagine you’re suggesting yourself,” Alexander said drily, but he was clearly furious.

Lee’s smirk was really starting to get on Eliza’s nerves. “I’m not suggesting anyone. I’m just saying that just because the man signed your law textbooks or whatever doesn’t mean he’s your real daddy.”

Alexander lunged.

Eliza grabbed the arm closest to her and Lafayette took the other. Before Alexander could even begin to struggle away however, a freckled young man standing in front of them turned around.

“The fuck did you just say?” For one wild second, Eliza thought he was talking to her until she realised that the man was actually addressing Lee.

“I said that we might need a change in leadership. I heard _your_ daddy might even agree with me, Laurens.”

Wham. The freckled Laurens punched Lee directly in the face, and within seconds the two of them were rolling around on the ground, exchanging punches, kicks, and what might have been some bites.

But Eliza couldn’t really focus on them because Alexander was struggling to get free. “Fuck! Let me at him, Laf.” He kicked backwards, accidentally catching Eliza on the shin.

“Ouch!” she yelped.

He stilled for a moment. “Eliza. I’m so sorry. Please, let me go.” Lafayette laughed a little harshly as Mulligan took over restraining duty for him.

“Stay in the cage, _petit lion_. Don’t want to attract too much attention.” And with that he strode over to the combatants, hauled Lee out of the fray and lifted him into the air with one hand. “Do not ever speak to my friends again, you hear?” His voice had changed to something low and dangerous and utterly foreign to Eliza. Lee, now frightened out of his wits and bleeding from the lip, nodded vigorously. Lafayette smiled. “Glad to hear it.” 

Then he punched him.

Lafayette lay the stunned body of Lee surprisingly carefully on the ground before pulling Laurens to his feet. “It’s been too long, friend,” Lafayette said to Laurens, who was looking a little bit dazed. They must have met before, although judging from what Eliza had seen of Lafayette, there was a good chance the two men were not as close as he made it appear. A crowd of onlookers had begun to develop and Eliza could hear shouting growing louder in the distance.

“ _Mes amis_ , I think it is time for us to make a how-you-say timely escape.” As the crowd grew louder and more disorderly around them, they needed no second bidding. The four of them, with Laurens in tow, hurried back to Eliza’s car, Alexander still swearing under his breath about Lee.

As soon as they got to the car, Eliza sprang into action. “Alexander, there should be a first-aid kit under the back seat. Could you get it, please?”

“We have a first aid kit?” he asked, and Eliza rolled her eyes.

“Get it please. Laurens? I need to get the swelling down on your eye. I don’t think your lip needs stitches, but I want to clean it to be sure.”

Laurens was sitting in the open trunk, propped up against the luggage. “It doesn’t need stitches. I can tell. And call me John.” Eliza didn’t ask why John had enough experience with injuries to know whether they needed stitches. She didn’t want to pry.

“Okay, John. I’m still going to clean you up.” It felt good to have a skill to bring to the group, even if it was just the first-aid training that her mother, a former nurse, had drilled into her as a child. “Alexander?”

But he was already crouching down in front of John with a cotton swab, clearly not entirely sure what he was doing, but eager to help. He dabbed at John’s lip for a second and then stopped. 

In Eliza’s memory, the next few moments lasted several eternities. Alexander looked up and locked eyes with John. “Hi,” John said with a split-lipped smile. 

“Thanks for punching Lee. Dude had it coming.” Their voices were quiet, and Eliza felt like she should step away, but she didn’t.

“Yeah. My pleasure. John Laurens, by the way.”

“Alexander Hamilton.” The way Alexander said his name had an almost musical lilt to it. Not just a statement, but a promise. John’s smile was widening by the moment, blood starting to stain his teeth.

“I need to take care of your lip. Excuse me, Alexander.” Eliza surprised herself with her brusqueness, with the discomfort roiling within her gut. Alexander had every right to look at other people like that. She was being ridiculous.

John spent the entire time she patched him up looking over her shoulder at Alexander. She told herself it didn’t bother her. She was lying.

“John?” she asked as she finished up. His eyes snapped to her for the first time since they’d met. He had nice eyes.

“Yeah?”

“Do you know Lafayette?”

He looked surprised. “A bit. He always liked me, I think, but, uh, we’ve never hung out much.” Eliza was taken aback slightly by his shyness. She assumed that anyone who started punching people in the middle of the street had no lack of confidence. Clearly, she was mistaken.

“Do you have anywhere to go? I don’t want to leave you in a parking garage.”

He blushed a little bit, and visibly stopped himself from chewing on his injured lip. “I could go home.” He said it in the same tone of voice one would use for saying they that they could go to the gallows.

Alexander was still hovering in the background, bouncing a little bit with his hyperactive energy. John was sitting in the trunk, looking pathetically bruised. Lafayette and Mulligan were standing off to the side, having a silent conversation. 

And then Eliza chose to do something incredibly stupid.

“Alexander, Lafayette, Mulligan and I are going on a road trip to California. We were on our way out. Want to come along?”

She found herself smiling at the blank look of shock on John’s face that slowly resolved into one of excitement. “Laf, Mulligan, does that work for you?” The two guys poked their heads through the seats.

“Eliza, I think you have a penchant for taking in strays,” Lafayette said. “Of course I want him to come. He is the great John Laurens. He punched Charles Lee. He deserves a medal of honour.”

“Agreed.” Alexander came over to slap John rather too hard on the back.

“Stop that. He’s injured. All of you get in the car.” All of a sudden, Eliza felt like the group mom herding all of the kids into the mini van. Her stomach hadn’t stopped churning.

“We’re about the same size. You can share some of my clothes since we’re not stopping off anywhere. That good?” John accepted Alexander’s generosity and they all piled in, Mulligan taking the passenger’s seat next to Eliza.

Mulligan leaned over to her as she programmed the GPS. “You sure about this? I can’t imagine this is what you expected your little trip to become.”

John Laurens sat in the far back with Alexander, who was holding a cloth to John’s still sluggishly bleeding nose. Alexander had already started in on a fresh rant, expanding on a point about some band that Eliza didn’t know, emphatically scrolling through an iPod that was probably Lafayette’s. Lafayette was in the middle back, somehow managing to take up both seats with his inhumanly long legs.

Eliza drew her gaze away from them, putting the car into reverse. She stole a glance at Mulligan, who was looking at her with a mixture of concern and bemusement. He obviously didn’t know what to make of her decisions. Neither did she. She smiled.

“I don’t think we have any idea what this is going to become. You ready?” And then she raised her voice, directing it at the whole car. “Everybody ready to go?”

“I’ve been ready my whole life.”

“Allons-y.”

“Fuck yeah.”

“Let’s go.”


	3. Pennsylvania and West Virginia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chocolate, books, and a very long road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like banter, cuz there's a lot of it in this chapter. I promise that sometimes there will be plot, but not a whole lot of it right here. Also, why is it so hard to describe where people are sitting in minivans?
> 
> Anyway, enjoy. Comments are appreciated.

“It only counts if the letter is at the beginning of the word, John. Stop cheating,” Alexander said a little over an hour later, nose pressed firmly against the window in search of suitable road signs for the alphabet game.

John reached over to push his head out of the way. “Well I can’t see anything because your massive head is blocking all the signs.”

“You’re still doing better than Lafayette,” Alexander retorted, which merited a whine from Lafayette, who was playing on his phone.

“I am at a linguistic disadvantage,” he moaned.

“You’re at a laziness disadvantage,” Mulligan corrected from the front seat. Eliza was still behind the wheel, enjoying the show through occasional glimpses in the rearview mirror.

“You know, I can see why your parents thought you needed babysitting, Lafayette,” she said.

The others laughed.

“But I can’t imagine they knew you were already part of a fully functioning nursery. The official rules of the alphabet game state that the letter must begin a word in order to count. Seriously, I should be getting paid for this stuff.”

“I am getting paid,” Mulligan said with a smirk. 

“I could fire you,” Lafayette warned. “Dammit, the pigs won.”

“What?” Eliza asked.

“Angry Birds.” Alexander and John chorused.  
“It’s 2016, who still plays Angry Birds?” Eliza could remember Peggy being into it in middle school.

“Those who are not sophisticated enough to play the alphabet game. Wait, I just got H. Hershey! Oh.” There was a short pause, and then Alexander continued, in a slightly reverent voice. “Hershey, Pennsylvania.”

Eliza risked a glance back. Alexander’s eyes were wide and slightly glazed. It was either cute or profoundly beautiful; she couldn’t decide. Eliza forced herself to look back at the road before she spoke.

“Do you want to stop? It’s not like we’re in a rush,”

Alexander rustled in his bag for a moment, but Eliza didn’t look to see what he was doing. Finally, he answered. “Yeah. If other people want to, anyway.” His voice sounded oddly vulnerable. Not something Eliza had heard from him before. He was so swaggeringly confident most of the time.

“Sounds sweet,” John said, sounding highly pleased with himself, and everyone groaned. Alexander relaxed back into his usual state of constant chatter, and the next few minutes were bright with animated discussions of sweets. Eliza looked for the exit, enjoying the childish argument that had sprung up on the subject of malted milk balls and something Lafayette called Maltesers. She couldn’t even imagine her own family ever having chosen to make the trip to Hershey.

She wasn’t ready for the sight that would greet her when she turned onto the high street. “Oh, look! All the street lamps look like Hershey’s kisses!” Eliza couldn’t help the slight squeak to her voice as they wound into the town.

“It’s like Willy Wonka.” Mulligan breathed, pressing his face to the window. 

“It’s like American capitalist propaganda,” Lafayette added, slightly sulkily. Despite his wholehearted embrace of all things American, he appeared to have a chocolate-related hang-up. 

Not that Eliza had never been a particular fan of Hershey. Her family had always been able to afford nice, dark chocolate, and that was where Eliza’s tastes had been led. She didn’t have any nostalgia for the sugary, inevitably slightly stale chocolates that kids passed around at school.

So, several minutes later, standing in entry room to the Hershey Factory, she was shocked to find herself staring open-mouthed at the scene before her.

The heady sweet scent of chocolate filled the air, mixing with fantastically bright colours and eye-popping advertisements for candy. The very air tasted heavy with processed sweets. Young children screeched the hunting-call for sugar, running between the adults standing in the doorway. All in all, Eliza thought that Lafayette’s assessment of consumerism was accurate and her own reservations about the flavour were well-founded. 

And yet, she loved it.

Her heart swelled with joy, and she felt a pang of nostalgia for something that she had never had, and, until this moment, never wanted. Despite how intensely saccharine this place was, and the clear bid to rob parents blind and send their children into sugar comas, the Hershey factory pulsed with concentrated, unmitigated happiness. Eliza was awash with the simple pleasure of being alive and able to taste the sweetness. Surprised with herself, she looked around at the others to gauge their reactions. 

Lafayette looked predictably unimpressed, although his eyes did dart furtively towards the Reese’s section a couple times. Mulligan was smiling, but looking a little overwhelmed. John’s face was interesting. He smile was too taut as his eyes darted around the people showing off their goods to each other. Eliza wondered what was making him so uncomfortable.

There was a reason Eliza had left Alexander’s face for last.

He was once again absolutely glowing with the power of his emotions. His face appeared frozen in the second before a laugh, eyes twinkling and hungry and appreciating the world with unimaginable intensity.

“This place is literal heaven.” Alexander, shockingly, seemed to be struggling for words. “It’s like…”

“What dreams are made of?” Lafayette said, somewhat snidely.

“Shut up. We’re taking a fucking tour of this place.” Alexander declared, clearly unwilling to let anyone burst his bubble.

“Come on, Lafayette,” Eliza said. “They have background history and a bunch of mechanical stuff. It’ll be good.”

Lafayette muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “capitalist pig dogs", but followed Alexander willingly enough.

***

“So you haven’t been here before?” Alexander asked John, casually grabbing John’s chocolate bar and taking a huge bite out of it. “I thought you were from around here,” he said with his mouth full. The two of them were sitting very close together on the grassy patch a couple blocks away from the factory that the group had chosen for the examination of their haul. Eliza sat a few feet away from them, munching on a Kit-Kat and wishing she didn’t want to listen in.

“North Carolina, so not really. But I mean I have been here, we just…I didn’t go in.” He looked uncomfortable.

Uncharacteristically, Alexander didn’t respond. He waited.

John glanced at him before looking down at his stash of candy and taking a deep breath. “My mom and sister went in. My dad thought I was soft enough as it was. We played baseball in that field over there. I mean I like baseball. But…” He trailed off, unwrapping another Hershey bar, since Alexander had commandeered his own. He looked critically at his pile of chocolate. “Anyway, it was a really long time ago. And I’m making him pay for all this shit, so joke’s on him. He’ll probably cancel my card soon, but well, gotta live.” With that, he shoved the entire candy bar in his mouth and smiled around it, clearly trying to lighten the mood.

Alexander shoved the bar he’d stolen into his mouth and grinned back. “It’s the American Dream.” He was either being highly ironic or deadly serious, and Eliza wasn’t certain even he knew which. 

“Eliza, have you tried this?” Lafayette was waving an Almond Joy at her. She tore herself away from Alexander and John’s conversation, feeling sad and slightly ashamed of herself.

“I thought you hated American candy.”

Lafayette shrugged. “I am an open-minded individual.” Mulligan snorted, plucking the Almond Joy out of his hand.

“You’re a flip-flopper. Like the RNC,” Mulligan said.

Alexander frowned. “Too far. We do not accuse our friends of having Mitch McConnell levels of backbone.”

The forced smile on John’s face was wavering. “Makes a change from my house. Dad’s old style republican, but he changed his tune pretty quick when he got some early re-election numbers back. That’s when he decided America could do with being great again.” The smile had twisted into something dark. 

“My sympathies, _mon ami_. Henry Laurens has little idea what makes America great. He never trusted me. ” Lafayette said, scooting over and putting arm around John, wedging himself next to Alexander.

“So you’re saying you’re what makes America great, then,” Mulligan said with an exasperated shake of his head.  
Lafayette was about to reply indignantly when John shook him off.

“Can we just fucking move on?” He asked, sounding a little sullen.

They moved on.

***

They were a couple of hours west of the Hershey factory, and the sugar rush was beginning to fade. The West Virginia highway rolled endlessly on, disappearing into the lowering sun. Eliza shielded her eyes against the glare and stifled a yawn.

“You need a break?” Lafayette asked from the passenger seat, his long legs folded over the dash and his arms draped languidly behind his head.

“I’m fine,” Eliza really didn’t mind driving, especially in her own car. It was big and ugly, but it was hers.

“Good because I don’t have a license,” Lafayette said. 

“Well, thanks for the offer anyway.” 

“Lafayette is particularly known for his useless promises,” Mulligan piped up from the middle back row. He gave Lafayette’s hair a playful tug for emphasis.

Lafayette huffed. “Not true. I am simply sometimes a little late. I always come through eventually, just in time to save the day.”

“Like a fairytale prince,” John said sarcastically from the far back. His head was resting on Alexander’s shoulder.

“There is nothing wrong with fairy tales,” Lafayette said. “They are the bedrock of all that is good in the world.”

“Not arguing. King Arthur and the Round Table are the bomb. Wouldn’t exactly say they’re a bedrock of good, though. The best bit is when this one knight literally explodes because he ate a poisoned apple.” Eliza glanced in the mirror. John’s face was lit up, handsomer than usual. “And I liked how it ends. That it doesn’t end all happy and shit. It makes it better, knowing that they die.”

“Hey. Spoilers,” Alexander said with mock indignation.

“It’s literally been more than five hundred years. There has got to be an expiration date on that.”

“Clearly you haven’t been slapped by your twelve year old sister for spoiling the ending of _Hamlet_ ,” Eliza said, remembering the look of absolute rage on Peggy’s face as she berated her and Angelica for talking about the last scene before Peggy’s class had read it. 

“Pretty sure it’s even called the _Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark_ , but whatever. King Arthur’s better anyway.”

“Le Petit Prince is my favourite book,” Lafayette offered up while retying his ponytail.

“That is not surprising considering what a child you are,” Mulligan groused good-naturedly. “My favourite is _Things Fall Apart_ by Chinua Achebe.”

“That is simply depressing,” Lafayette said.

“I haven’t read it. What’s it about?” Eliza asked. 

John answered. “Basically this old Nigerian tribesman is obsessed with his father’s legacy and so he won’t accept any sort of progress, and he hates his son and beats his wives and then the white people are racist like normal and then the tribesman does more bad shit and then he kills himself.”

“Spoilerssss,” Alexander whined.

“John, that was a terrible summary,” Mulligan said, genuinely a little offended.

John shrugged. “To each his own I guess. Eliza, what’s your favourite book?”

Eliza had to think for a moment. Obviously, she didn’t only have one favourite. No one did. But Eliza also didn’t read nearly as much as her sisters, so she could at least remember most of the ones she had enjoyed. “ _Jane Eyre._ ”

“Why?” That was Alexander.

Eliza wouldn’t have known what to say before he asked, but as soon as she opened her mouth she found that she had an answer ready. “Because she’s genuinely a good person, but she’s also interesting, and she makes her own way in the world. She gets what she wants without being horrible to people.”

“She does marry someone who locked his wife in the attic. That’s slightly problematic.” Alexander said.

“I should probably care about that more than I do,” Eliza said. She had spent a long time thinking about that particular snarl on her more recent re-reads, but ultimately she couldn’t help but believe in the prevailing love story. 

“You really should,” Alexander said, but he was almost laughing.

“So then, what’s your favourite?” Eliza asked. He was the only one who hadn’t yet spoken up.

“ _The Great Gatsby,_ ” Alexander said without a moment’s hesitation.

“That’s disappointingly mainstream, Alex,” said John.

“Fuck you. I just like him.”

“Who?”

“Gatsby. I like his discipline, his intelligence and his charisma. I like that he _wants_ something badly enough to die for it. I like that he could reinvent himself completely, that no one could quite figure him out. And I like his capacity for love. Infinite, but focused.”

There was a beat of silence.

“I cannot believe you called me on _Jane Eyre_ being problematic. Gatsby is on a whole other level,” Eliza said incredulously, still trying to process Alexander’s words. She wasn’t sure she understood, not really, but she was drawn to them all the same. Drawn to him.

“Let’s just agree to be problematic together, then,” and Eliza didn’t have to look in the rearview mirror to know that he was smirking at her.

“I think we can all say our book choices are a little messed up. It’s all good. Let’s move on,” John said.

But Eliza had just realised something. “Fine, but can I just say that my book is the only one out of all of them that doesn’t end with the death of the main character? Just consider that.”

Alexander laughed, warmly but without humour. For a split second, their eyes met in the mirror. She couldn’t read his expression. “Oh, Eliza. All stories are tragedies if you just wait long enough.”

***

They stopped for dinner at a McDonald’s.

“This is the definition of an American road trip,” Mulligan said, munching on a burger.

“Why?” Eliza asked, staring suspiciously at salad that was so sad and lifeless-looking that she began to wonder whether lettuce could be abused. 

“Because we were so indecisive about where to stop that we ended up in West Virginia where the only option is the insatiable golden-arched monster. Obviously,” Alexander said around the straw of the milkshake he was sharing with John. He had thus far spent the entire meal alternating between touching John unnecessarily and shooting looks at Eliza. She wasn’t certain whether she was imagining it or whether he was actually moving his mouth differently around that straw when he looked at her.

She tried not to think about it.

“This is essential. Bonding over terrible food and poor planning is an essential part of any American road trip,” Lafayette said, looking around the dingy restaurant with satisfaction. “I have watched many movies. Though most of them have a better premise for the road trip. Generally one to do with finding lost love. Not making sure one man is on time for a fashion conference,” He did not seem bothered by the flimsy premise of their mission.

“We’re going to LA. It’s the dream,” Alexander said, a little too flippantly.

“We’re soul-searching,” Eliza added, thinking of her parents. They probably thought she was raising potatoes on a hippie plantation or something, not eating fast food in West Virginia with four brilliant young men whom she barely knew. 

“Nope, we’re running away,” John said seriously. 

“Frankly, I was just _ennuyé,_ ” Lafayette lobbed his wrapper into the trash can. “And it so happens that I would rather tempt boredom in a West Virginia McDonald’s than Philadelphia, or, God forbid, France.”

Strangely, that seemed to make sense.

***

Eliza soon discovered how empty West Virginia could be. Maybe they were just on a bad stretch of highway, but it had been at least forty five minutes since the last hotel. After dinner, she had gladly gotten behind the wheel, thinking that they would soon stop for the night.

She hadn’t counted on West Virginia.

It was only around ten o’clock, but Mulligan, John, and Lafayette were all slumped in various arrangements in the back seats. Alexander was in the passenger’s seat, eyes closed. Eliza’s headlights blazed a solitary trail through the darkness. She couldn’t help but think that it was that sort of darkness that felt full of promise, like there was a great adventure just beyond the headlights. She peered through it, hoping to find a sign for a Motel 8. 

“Why did you decide to take four strange men with you on a road trip across the country?” Alexander’s eyes blinked open.

“I thought you were asleep.”

“I don’t sleep. Why did you do it?”

“Well, I didn’t put it quite like that in my head.”

Alexander hummed. “Yes you did. You think things through, even quick decisions.” She didn’t know what to make of that. She didn’t look at him.

“My parents know Lafayette’s parents. I figured there was a low probability of me being kidnapped.”

“Weak argument.”

“I know.” She ran a hand through her hair. She could feel Alexander’s intense eyes on the side of her face. “I was unhappy. Not really for a good reason. I guess I just felt stuck in my life. Helpless. Like everything about my life trajectory was set, mostly by other people. It drove me crazy. Everyone has always told me how good I am, as a person. Lately, it’s gotten strangely reductive-feeling. I don’t know.”

“You’re road-tripping with us. Now what are those people going to say?” Alexander had a broad, stick-it-to-the-man smile on his face.

Eliza sighed. “Frankly, I doubt they’ll notice. Everything I do gets twisted into something selfless and noble. Even my parents don’t doubt for a second that I’m making the right choices all the time. They think I’m going on some kind of spiritual journey, a romantic trip into adulthood.”

“You’re in West Virginia.”

Eliza laughed a little. “Seriously. I could be in a literal strip club for all anyone would notice. As long as once I return, I’m back practising psychology for a couple years in New York before inevitably raising children while my rich husband rakes in the cash.”

“Could be worse.”

Eliza knew that. She knew how petty it was to complain, especially to Alexander. She didn’t know a lot about him, but she could tell he didn’t come from money. She knew she should say something about how grateful she was. She really was grateful.

But then she chanced a look into Alexander’s eyes, nearly invisible in the dark, but somehow still vibrant. “It could be so much better,” she said, and his smile was dazzling.

His hand moved across the gear shift to rest on her knee.

Eliza stiffened, thinking of the brief kiss in the dark of Lafayette’s house. It seemed like lifetimes ago. Thinking of Alexander since, much more distant from her, hanging all over John, who clearly adored him. 

It was the moment to make a decision.

She could push his hand away, establish the boundary between them. That was the logical choice. She didn’t know him, but she knew that he was sharp, in every sense of the word. It was the kind thing to do, really. Eliza didn’t think she’d ever looked at another human being the way John looked at Alexander. Besides, what did it say about them that Alexander only opened up to her under the cover of darkness? Could that bode well for anything?

Or she could lay her hand over his, lay claim to him for as long as he allowed it. There was no sound argument for this course of action. Just Eliza’s blood which sang with _want._ She was accustomed to trusting her gut, but in this one case, it made her afraid.

She watched the road, Alexander’s hand burning just above her knee. _Two roads diverged…_

“It’s funny. I have exactly the opposite problem,” Alexander said, breaking the spell. His hand began to feel cooler on her leg, and she didn’t have to choose.

The disappointment was unwarranted, and Eliza pushed it away. “What’s that?”

“No one expects anything from me. But someday, they’re going to be blown away.” Alexander didn’t say it with simple arrogance. No, the confidence in his tone was much richer, must darker. Eliza could tell that he could literally see his own greatness, dancing beneath his eyelids. He believed in his own future success, more like a memory than a dream.

“Then what are you scared of?” she asked after a long pause. She could feel it in the hand resting on her leg, a tension, something in his self-constructed world that only he could sense.

Minutes past without an answer.

Eliza listened to Mulligan’s snuffling breath, and watched the glowing yellow line reflect off her headlights. She began to think he might have fallen asleep, or perhaps decided that she was after all not worth his confidence. She carefully wasn’t bothered by these thoughts.

“Is anyone going to catch me when I fall?”

So that was it.

Eliza didn’t know the answer. Couldn’t really imagine Alexander being anything but quick and brilliant and utterly in control. “What makes you so certain you’ll fall?” She too could take as given that he would achieve towering heights. She couldn’t see him faltering.

“You know. I understand Gatsby, I sympathise with him, but in the end I don’t really like him. He fails. I don’t want to fail. But I’ve had a hell of a lot of good luck, mingling about with all the bad. My life has been extreme, a lot of good and a lot of bad. But the thing is that good luck runs out eventually, but the chaos of the world will only ever grow.”

“You don’t think that’s even a little bit pretentious?” Eliza asked, trying not to get swept up and failing pretty badly.

“Maybe, but at least my pretences are noble ones.” He said in that strangely formal voice he had used to introduce himself, simultaneously mocking and underscored with the utmost sincerity. 

Eliza couldn’t help but smile. “I think you are a man out of time, Alexander Hamilton.”

“Not yet, I hope.”

She didn’t understand him. She didn’t understand how quickly light and dark passed through him, nor how much it fascinated her. She would like to think it was because of her psychology background, an academic interest. 

The rate of her heart said otherwise.

_“So we drove on towards death through the cooling twilight,_ ” Alexander whispered it with a certain degree of relish, and Eliza vaguely remembered the line, although it was not one of Fitzgerald’s most famous.

Eliza watched the road, thinking that he was being dramatic, but also that he wasn’t wrong. She glanced at his face. His eyes were also watching the road, afraid and hungry and unguarded. And suddenly Eliza realised that it was not, after all, the fall that he was afraid of.

He was afraid that he would jump.

***

A cheap motel did eventually appear over the horizon. Tired and sweaty, the five of them trouped inside, earning suspicious looks from the haggard staff. Eliza did her best to ingratiate herself to them, mentally trying very hard to blame their hostility on general unhappiness regarding their working life, and not any specific malice. However, despite Eliza’s kindness and efforts to polite and charming, they continued to give her strange looks. She supposed she was traveling alone with four men. That was weird to her; she couldn’t imagine how strange it was from the outside.

It was Lafayette who swooped in to save the day.

“Two rooms, please. One with double beds and one with a queen. For my wife and I.” He snaked a long arm around her waist, something which from an outsider’s perspective, would look really intimate, but to anyone familiar with Lafayette, was merely par for the course. 

The receptionist frowned slightly, but looked marginally less scandalised. “Rooms 22 and 23. Down the hall and to your left. Any vandalised items or damages will be charged to your account. Have a pleasant stay,” she said, fairly unconvincingly.

“I can pay for my own room,” Eliza told Lafayette as soon as they were on their way down to the hall. 

“Nah, it’s only right that your ‘husband’ pay, huh Lafayette?” Mulligan said, shaking his head. “That was such a terrible lie. You look about twelve. And the look on Eliza’s face when you put an arm around her! Not even a little bit convincing.”

“I was merely ensuring the spotless nature of our good lady Schuyler’s reputation,” Lafayette said haughtily.

“Very noble, I’m sure. But I have thus far done an impeccable job with my own reputation, thank you very much,” Eliza said with a sweet smile.

“Forget Eliza’s reputation, did you see the way she looked at the rest of us? _Damages will be charged to the room_. She was fucking profiling us.” John kicked at the scuffed carpet, then jumped slightly as his phone rang out. He took one look at the caller i.d., huffed, and then stuck it back in his pocket. “I’m going for a walk,” he said, turned around and began to pace the other way down the hallway.

“Probably for the best,” Mulligan said wryly.

“He is right, though,” said Alexander, expression nearly as dark as John’s. Then, he too took out his phone, but apparently saw nothing of interest because he immediately put it away again.

They reached the rooms. Lafayette, Mulligan and Alexander deposited their things in the room with the double beds, while Eliza took the queen, thanking Lafayette quietly before entering.

“You deserve it,” he said with a smile that made her believe him. “Sweet dreams. I am going to find John before he gets himself in trouble. Since I have known him, he has always had a temper. “ Lafayette winked. There were so many stories that Eliza didn’t know.

Resigning herself, at least temporarily, to ignorance, Eliza changed into pyjamas and spread herself on the bed with a groan of relief. Every muscle felt cramped from driving even though they hadn’t gotten that far. The thin hotel mattress felt like absolute bliss. She could hear the boys talking next door, and she closed her eyes for a second.

Her phone buzzed.

Eliza picked it up, realising at that moment how long it had been since she’d last checked it. Unsurprisingly, there were several texts from Angelica. The latest read: “ARE U DEAD SRSLY ELIZA I WILL MURDER YOU IF YOU DON’T CALL ME NOW”. Eliza smiled a little guiltily and called back.

“Please don’t murder me, Ange,” she said as soon as it stopped ringing.

“Elizabeth Schuyler, I am very disappointed in you. It has been over 24 hours since I’ve heard a word, and your father and I were worried sick.” Angelica’s voice was mock severe, but there was real chastisement behind it. 

“Sorry,” she said meekly, even though there was a very small likelihood their father was worried, and a very high likelihood that Angelica just hated being out of the loop.

“Apology accepted. Now, what are you doing?” Her voice went from maternal chastisement to sisterly conspiracy at the speed of light. Eliza couldn’t help giggling a little.

“We’re in West Virginia.”

“Huh. Wait, _we_?”

Somehow, the explanation managed to sound more strange every time she gave it. “I’m going on a road trip with Lafayette, his roommates Mulligan and Alexander, and his friend John.” She elected not to go into the whole protest story, although she was certain her sister would get it out of her eventually.

Angelica whistled. “Eliza and the boys. Sounds delightful. And very un-you. Has a skin changer gotten to you?”

“Uh, what? Oh, no. Just sort of did it, I guess.”

“I love you.”

“Uh, thanks.”

“So, any of your plethora of brand new options catch your eye?” Angelica asked slyly.

“No,” Eliza replied, far too quickly. “And don’t talk about them like they’re for sale.”

“You’re so sweet when you’re lying, ‘Liza.”

It was so easy to be overpowered by Angelica. She was so assured, so confident in her ability to manipulate any situation to her advantage, so comforting in her older sister role.

“It’s not a thing or anything, but I spent a lot of time talking to Alexander Hamilton. He’s —.” But she didn’t get to finish.

“Hamilton?” And Angelica’s voice acquired a quality of brittleness that Eliza had never heard before. “I didn’t realise it was that Alexander.”

“You know him?” Eliza had never considered the possibility, and it sent an inexplicable chill down her spine.

“He studied law at Columbia. We _met_ at a few Ivy League debate tournaments.”

“Oh.” Of course. Alexander may have paid some attention to her in the last couple days, but they were stuck together in a car after all. If Angelica had been there…well, it wasn’t her sister’s fault that the world was in love with her.

“Don’t sound so resigned, Eliza.” That was easy for Angelica to say. Resignation did not even exist in her worldview.

“Stay away from him, right?” Part of Eliza desperately wanted Angelica to warn her away. It was what she’d been telling herself since Alexander had kissed her on the landing. Maybe it would be the push she needed to return to her senses. 

Angelica’s sigh crackled through the phone line. “Alexander is an Icarus, and he can’t wait to reach the sun. If it were me, I don’t think I could handle being burnt like that.”

“So, stay away then.” Unlike Angelica, resignation was an old friend of Eliza Schuyler’s. The leaden weight in her chest was comfortable for its familiarity. 

“You’re not me, Eliza. Just do what you think will make you happy.” Angelica’s voice sounded strained, but sincere.

“How am I supposed to know?” Eliza asked, suddenly feeling very young.

Angelica laughed, but not cruelly. “Figure it out, then tell me. Fuck knows I have no idea. Now, I suspect you have not arrived in West Virginia totally free of adventures. Spill.”

And of course Eliza told her about the protest, and about chocolate bars, and new clothes and friends and old favourite books. Because she was her sister, and she should know everything.

Or maybe not. When Eliza finally fell into an exhausted sleep, her dreams were full of brown eyes meeting at imagined debate tournaments and her stomach tightened with a kind of sick hunger. 

For what, she genuinely didn’t know.


	4. Kentucky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit starts to get real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, TW for homophobic slurs and threats of violence in this chapter. If reading those things makes you uncomfortable, you should be able to skip this chapter and continue with the next. This is the only chapter to explicitly contain these things, which is why I'm not tagging the whole fic.
> 
> Also, I realised that I should maybe clarify that the characters in this story have the appearances of the original Broadway cast. Additionally, I've worked in details of the lives of the historical figures. For example, my Mulligan was adopted from Nigeria by an Irish immigrant seamstress who was unable to have children, and Alexander is from Puerto Rico, but is fluent in French and well as Spanish. Also, probably a lot of other languages. Alexander Hamilton would have crushed Duo Lingo. 
> 
> Think that's all the house-keeping for now! See you in the comments!

Eliza couldn’t deny that she was bleary-eyed as they packed back into the car the next morning. The boys didn’t look too much better, and the air was heavy with tiredness as Eliza pulled them back onto the highway. Mulligan made an aborted offer to take over for a while, but Eliza turned him down, not totally sure why.

Meanwhile, Alexander had pulled out his laptop and was typing away frenetically while Mulligan read over his shoulder and Lafayette played what was presumably still Angry Birds.

“What’s he writing?” Eliza asked John, unwilling to break Alexander’s intense concentration. She had a feeling it could result in bloodshed.

“An official complaint to the motel management about customer service and racial profiling in regards to policy disclosure.”

“There’s no way that stands up. There’s no proof of wrongdoing.” Eliza said incredulously, but she was a little impressed. She didn’t think anyone ever actually wrote to customer service about anything. She certainly never had. 

“My bet is that no one will even read it,” Mulligan piped up. “As far as I can tell, he’s over five pages and is still going full speed.” Eliza wasn’t sure whether Alexander was ignoring them or was genuinely too focused to hear, but either way, he had no retort. 

“It’s fucking awesome,” John said. “Doesn’t matter if no one reads it. It’s got to be written.”

They passed into Kentucky. Bluegrass blew in the light summer wind, and the frequency of horse farms dramatically increased. Mulligan, who apparently loved horses, was determined to take a picture of every one he saw. Alexander continued writing.

“Fuck, it’s nice to get away,” John said, looking out the window as if it looked out on an alien planet rather than some fairly ordinary fields.

“Yeah, it really is.” Eliza smiled. The day was beautiful, and she was driving through a state she’d never been to, sharing the experience with new and interesting people. 

“I never did any of this stuff growing up. No road trips or random vacations. My father worked a lot, and always planned everyone’s free-time. And Mom was sick back then,” John said.

“I’m sorry,” said Eliza, meaning it.

“S’okay. She’s dead now, anyway, and I’m off doing this. No harm done.” Eliza didn’t believe that one bit.

“It’s okay if there was, you know.”

“What?”

“Harm.” John gave her a strange look. She realised they were talking very quietly. His face took a long time to decide how it was going to react.

“What would you know about it?” He decided on, mildly defensive.

“I don’t. It’s just a beautiful day.” Even the concrete was glittering in the high sun. Eliza felt more than saw John relax.

“It really is. Why did you want to get away?” He asked with sudden curiosity. His eyes were probing on the side of her face, and Eliza found herself vaguely grateful that he spent so much more of his time focusing on Alexander than he did on her. 

“Too much time doing what everyone expected, I guess. I studied psychology. My parents have always been very certain of my path in life, and I don’t want to disappoint them. But I guess I needed to make some decisions for myself first. Honestly, I don’t really know. The whole thing wasn’t planned.”

John smiled at her. His dimples were breathtaking when he smiled. “I can get that. Schuyler, right? Is your dad in politics? I think I’ve heard of him.”

“He’s in law, but you’ve probably heard of him. My older sister, Angelica, is going into politics though. Hey, Alexander? Angelica said she knew you.”

Alexander was just closing his laptop, and Eliza immediately regretted opening the topic. She didn’t know why she did it, bring Angelica into the car when she wasn’t even actually there. She couldn’t seem to help herself.

“Angelica is your sister?” Eliza was disciplined enough not to turn around and torture herself over Alexander’s facial reaction.

She expected him to express surprise. That was the usual reaction, and not only because they looked nothing alike. But Alexander just sounded interested.

“She is. She said you two met at debate tournament.”

Alexander’s light laugh confirmed for Eliza that “met” was not quite the right word for whatever they had been doing, but she found she had no desire to learn more. 

“Yeah, we did. So, what is she like, as a sister? Tiring, I imagine.”

“She’s amazing,” Eliza said with conviction, feeling the old sisterly loyalty rise within her. “She’s the best.”

“I’m sure she is,” John cut in, slightly sharply. They had been cutting him out. “Alex, did you send off that complaint? I want to hear it.” And just like that, Alexander’s focus had shifted completely to John and their shared desire to put forth the most eloquent and vicious complaint ever devised for a nondescript motel chain.

Eliza soon lost the thread, finding the vainness of their attempt at justice frustrating rather than inspiring.

***

“I’m hungry. We did not have our _petit déjeuner_ ,” Lafayette declared a couple of hours later. He had long since run out of lives in Angry Birds, and had taken up a lively discussion with Mulligan about a tv show or something they both liked and Eliza had never even heard of. However, apparently his hunger took precedent over his inexplicable love for niche, afro-futurist science fiction.

“Laf, you gotta know your habit of throwing in random french words when you are perfectly capable of expressing yourself in English is extraordinarily annoying,” said Mulligan.

“Breakfast. It means breakfast.” Lafayette rolled his eyes. “The context clues are there. It is not my fault you derive from a shockingly mono linguistic culture. I am merely trying to broaden your mind,” Lafayette said with haughtiness on full power. 

“Thanks for the total un-condescending clarification,” Mulligan said sarcastically.

Eliza decided it was time for her to step in. “All right then, looks like it’s time for some food. Any ideas?”

There were a few beats of silence.

“I think there is only one place we can rightfully go,” John said with the utmost solemnity. 

“Where?” Alexander asked, clearly eager to play along.

“KFC, obviously.”

Alexander moaned dramatically. “Ah, the local, acronymic home of fried food. My old Kentucky Fried Chicken.”

“You people are all going to get heart disease,” Eliza said, envisioning the greasy mess that she would be forced to eat.

“That is why, my dear Eliza, you, being a sensible young lady, should never have signed on to eat every meal with a group of young men,” Lafayette said sagely. “Personally, I look forward to the heart disease.”

“I question all of you, but I’ll turn off when I see one.” The cheers that emanated from the backseat were truly pathetic in their enthusiasm. 

It turned out that KFCs in Kentucky were not as plentiful as they might have expected, but one eventually did turn up, and Eliza took the exit, grateful for the chance to stretch her legs, though still apprehensive of the dining options. 

“Ooh, a park!” Alexander exclaimed. Park was definitely a stretch, but the large grassy area, dotted with trees and picnic benches did look very appealing in the light of the sun. The boys decided to go in and order while Eliza pulled out a tattered blanket from the trunk. It was the one that she and her sisters had sat on to watch the fireworks when they were little. She remembered Peggy hiding under it and her and Angelica sitting on their sister in an attempt to keep her from having to go to bed earlier than the rest of them.

Awash with fond memories, Eliza laid out the blanket and rolled onto her back, feeling her eyelids grow heavy with a combination of warm sun and poor sleep. Hazily, she watched a group of men eating their lunch at a nearby picnic table. If she let her eyes slide out of focus, all their shirts blended together. She shut her eyes.

Voices filtered slowly back through her consciousness.

“There’s absolutely no way you can eat that.”

“Watch me.”

“Maybe I will.”

“Shut up! Eliza’s asleep.”

“ ‘m not.” Eliza managed, cracking her eyes open to see the boys carrying a mound of chicken. She yawned and sat up. “Just dozing.”

“You’re adorable,” Lafayette said fondly, sitting himself down next to her. Mulligan sat on her other side, and Alexander and John were across from them with an obscene amount of fried chicken. Obviously, they were the the ones who had been having the argument.

“I’m not even that tired. It’s just such a nice day. Some chicken, please.” A warm breeze, laden with the scent of cooked meat, wafted over them. Eliza breathed deeply, waking herself up. John and Alexander had fallen deeply into conversation, so Eliza turned to Lafayette and Mulligan.

“So, how long ago did the two of you meet?” It felt awkwardly like something she would ask a couple, but she was curious.

Lafayette laughed. “Ours was an arranged relationship. When I was seventeen, I decided to come here for college. My parents were glad enough to get rid of me, but would have felt guilty if they didn’t throw at least one more bucket load of money at my well-being, so they hired Mulligan to take care of me.” There was clearly bitterness at his parents somewhere in there, but Eliza was hard-pressed to detect it in his voice. Lafayette seemed infinitely capable of good humour. 

“Laf’s parents are old money. Like aristocracy old. And they’re doctors, so they have even more to throw around,” Mulligan added. Lafayette nodded without a hint of embarrassment. 

“They are less well-endowed in the art of raising children, but, well, you can always buy happiness.” That should have sounded grim, but Lafayette could make anything seem fun. Anyway, they would have to work hard to ruin her mood at the moment.t Eliza was full of chicken, happy to stretch out her legs and soak in the rays. Bitterness, hardship and unhappiness all felt very far away from the placidly moving day. Lafayette, clearly feeling the same, stretched like a cat and lay down with his face inclined towards John, who was trying to sneak a piece of chicken away from Alexander.

“Nope.” Alexander’s hand clamped down on John’s, but he continued to pull. “My chicken.”

“Not anymore.” John tried to roll away across the blanket, but Alexander went with him, the two of them tumbling in a mass of limbs. Eliza did her best to whisk the leftovers out of the way as they struggled playfully on the ground. 

After about a minute of gleeful shouting, kicking, and potentially even biting, Alexander emerged as the victor. He chomped smugly on his chicken while John lay, panting, half way across his lap.

“ _Le Petit Lion_ has you beat, Mr. Laurens. What a shame,” Lafayette said mockingly, still sprawled lazily across his corner of the blanket. 

John made an attempt to lunge for Lafayette, but Alexander wrapped an arm around him, pulling him close. “Not so fast. You’re mine,” he whispered in John’s ear, and then licked his lips. 

Feeling suddenly awkward, Eliza glanced away. She found herself looking at the men sitting at the picnic table. She was surprised to find that they were looking back, talking quietly to each other and openly staring at her friends.

A tingling feeling of unease was settling over Eliza. Any remaining feelings of sleepiness were immediately washed away.

She nudged Mulligan, and discreetly nodded towards the men. He followed her gaze, eyes narrowing. “They’re not doing anything.”

Eliza nodded, still compelled to speak in a low whisper. “They’re probably perfectly decent people. It’s just a feeling.” She and Mulligan locked eyes, silently trying to decide if they should do anything.

A moment later, the decision was taken out of their hands.

Several things happened in quick succession.

John’s fingers danced around Alexander’s mouth, under the pretext of finding bits of chicken.

One of the men stood up from the picnic table.

Eliza realised there was nothing she could do to prevent this situation from going very badly very quickly.

“Hey, we didn’t order any fags with our lunch. You’re wrecking the view,” the man said. Eliza could hardly believe she was hearing someone say that in real life.

Mulligan stiffened next to her. The air itself seemed to tighten with invisible tension. The warmth of the sun, glorious a few minutes ago, now felt hot and oppressive.

“Dave, sit down. It ain’t worth it,” one of the other men said wearily. For half a second Eliza thought the confrontation might be over. 

But Dave didn’t back down. 

“Fuck that. I don’t care if the fags go somewhere else with their perverted shit. Just not in front of me, I say. It’s reasonable, what I’m asking.”

Neither John nor Alexander had moved an inch, John still sitting mostly in Alexander’s lap. When he spoke, Alexander’s voice was hard and cold. “I don’t think you fully understand the definition of reasonable, sir. Let me explain—“

If Alexander had turned to ice, then John was boiling. Eliza could see him physically shaking, expressions darting over his face too quickly for Eliza to register. 

Then he smiled.

“No, Alexander,” he said, voice dangerously playful. “I don’t think that’s the part he’s having trouble with. You see, I think it’s this that he has a problem with.”

And then John turned, lightning fast, and kissed Alexander full on the mouth, hard. Alexander froze for a second, his eyes open wide in shock. Eliza’s heart was thudding painfully under her ribs, fingertips numb with fear.

Alexander pushed back into the kiss with vicious intensity. It looked, from Eliza’s vantage point, painful and desperate. 

The kiss lasted a bare few seconds, but those instants passed as if in slow motion, Eliza’s brain processing the scene before her with supernatural speed. She watched Dave lunge for them. She watched Alexander’s eyes widen again as he saw what was about to happen. She watched John register it too.

Then everything sped back up.

John bounced to his feet faster than Eliza would have thought possible, pulling Alexander up with him. Dave’s grasping arms missed them by inches as they popped up, John leading as they sped towards the car.

John was laughing with exhilaration as they ran. “Can’t catch me, motherfucker!” He yelled over his shoulder. Alexander gave the men the finger with the hand not locked in John’s over-tense fist.

For a moment, this triumphant exit seemed to be the end of things. Eliza let out a gasping breath, noticing for the first time how hard her hands were shaking.

Dave was breathing heavily too, but was apparently too slow to catch up.

Then he turned to his friend.

“Tuck, gimme your gun.”

Tuck was the one who had told him to sit down earlier. “Nah man. Let ‘em go. You showed ‘em good enough.”

But Alexander and John were not yet at the car, and Dave was advancing on Tuck.

Eliza tried to push herself up, to do what she did not know, but she found her legs were shaking. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. A hundred bloody scenarios were playing out in her head and she was helpless.

“I suggest you not do that.” Eliza hadn’t noticed Lafayette get up, and apparently neither had Dave because the Frenchman was now standing between him and Tuck’s gun.

Eliza had never realised how tall Lafayette was. He towered over Dave, his cat-like movements, usually amusing, were now nothing short of dangerous.

Dave opened his mouth, probably to spit some sort of racist bile, but Lafayette never gave him the chance.

In a move too quick for Eliza eyes to follow, Lafayette had Dave in an utterly casual headlock. Eliza, Mulligan and the other two men were frozen, unable to do anything but wait for what Lafayette would do.

“I fear you were about to say something _très idiot._ ” Lafayette’s voice was deadly soft. “That would be very not good for you. Instead, you will let my friends and I return to our car and drive away. You will then return to your tiny, bigoted life as if nothing ever happened. If you do not do this, I will break your neck. This seems reasonable to me. Yes?”

Dave nodded convulsively.

Lafayette inclined his head at Mulligan and Eliza, a lazy smile still firmly in place.

Eliza scrambled to her feet, grabbing her blanket and letting the chicken bones scatter in the grass. She was still trembling, her breath loud in her own ears. Mulligan put a large, comforting hand on the small of her back.

Shakily, they walked back to the car.

John and Alexander were crouched behind the car, unable to get in without Eliza’s keys. John started laughing again as soon as they rounded the corner, his curly hair hanging wild in his face, dimples prominent. He did look a little bit pale, but otherwise not overly bothered with the recentness of his near brush with catastrophe. Alexander’s eyes were wide and glittering and Eliza found that she did not want to look into them. She was still shaking.

“ _Mon ami_ , you are not easy to keep away from trouble. I don’t think I should ever have let you near our little lion.” Lafayette had caught up with them and reached a hand down to pull John up. His voice was warm, tinged slightly with amusement. A full one eighty from a few minutes ago.

 

“You know me. A rouser of rabble.” The hand that was not held by Lafayette was still firmly encircling Alexander’s.

“Happy to be the rabble,” Alexander said wickedly, standing up as well. He was steadier on his feet than Eliza would have thought. In fact, he stood straighter and more still than Eliza had ever seen him.

John drew closer to Alexander, and Lafayette stepped nearer to both of them. Eliza stayed back, feeling sick and unable to sort her emotions. The others appeared to have no such difficulties.  
“John, I have no idea how you have ever survived all these years without me. I should have known Alexander would light the fuse,” Lafayette said. Eliza was still trying to reconcile the man before her with the one who had put Dave into a headlock. She could not.

“They were just idiots, Laf. They liked to talk big, but anyone that small minded is just a coward in the end. Sent apoplectic by a kiss. Seriously,” Alexander said, leaning back against van and coming to John’s defence. “Not a big deal. Nowhere near the stupidest thing either of us has done, I’m sure.”

Lafayette appeared ready to leave it at that, and Eliza turned to go around to the driver’s seat. 

She ran into Mulligan. He hadn’t moved.

“You sure about that?” While Lafayette’s voice became more cultivated when he was angry, Mulligan’s did just the opposite. It was harsh and low. Alexander froze, looking confused.

“What? Nothing happened.”

“You know they had a gun?” Alexander’s eyes widened. John was standing perfectly still next to him. 

“Who did?” He wasn’t following.

“That dude’s friend. He was gonna get it. Shoot the two of you stone dead. If it weren’t for Lafayette saving your asses I don’t know that we’d be having this conversation. It’s not something to fucking laugh over. You could have been killed.” Alexander’s eyes flickered. John still hadn’t moved, didn’t appear to have any interest in the information being presented to him. 

Mulligan shook his head in deep, silent anger before getting in the passenger’s seat and slamming the door.

Alexander’s eyes flickered to Eliza, as if for confirmation. “Eliza?”

She wanted to tell him that he had terrified her, that she had never been so frightened for two people in her life. She wanted to say that for an instant she had seen a world without Alexander Hamilton and John Laurens flash before her eyes and that she was still shaking from it. But Alexander and John were holding hands and looking nervous and it wasn’t Eliza’s place and would never be her life and she didn’t know why she imagined anything at all.

She managed only a jerky nod. “Just get in the car.”

Eliza locked eyes with John for just a second as she rounded the car, and she thought he could sense a little bit of what she was thinking. She blushed and he pressed even closer to Alexander and then the moment was gone.

They were driving again.

The same road as an hour ago, but everything had changed.


	5. Ohio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is in one piece, but Mulligan is pissed, Eliza is conflicted, Lafayette has no sense of timing, and Alexander and John would rather be starting a revolution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, sorry for the long delay on this chapter. This was the point at which I took like a year break from writing this story, and so editing it to smooth over the gaps was quite the chore. To be honest, I'm still not 100% happy with this chapter, but I like some of the later stuff a lot more. Stick with me, please?
> 
> Also, a note on John. I love John as a character, and I love him and Alexander's relationship, in history, in the musical and in lots of fan fiction. However, bear in mind that this story is told from Eliza's perspective. There's a lot she doesn't understand about him, and she also has significant biases of her own that stop her from getting to know him as well as she could. Because of these factors, if Lams is all you're looking for, this fic is not for you, and I suggest you bow out now.
> 
> All my insecure and over-thought author's notes aside, I hope you enjoy the new chapter!

“Won’t this way take longer?” Lafayette asked in a wilful attempt to ignore the silence, his shoes propped on the side of Eliza's headrest. For the last couple hours, the mood in the car had been tense, to say the least. Alexander and John were huddled together in the back, intimate and uncomfortable. Mulligan was frozen over in silent rage, and Eliza was policing her own emotions with hitherto unexperienced brutality.

Lafayette alone seemed unaffected, and it was supremely irritating.

“Maybe. I don’t care. We’re going north. I’m sick of the South,” Eliza said shortly. She was so tired. Her brain felt like lead.

“Stereotyping a bit, aren’t you?” Lafayette asked, his voice still irritatingly light.

“Probably.”

She didn’t make any move to apologise or change directions. The car lapsed back into silence. 

Slowly, deeply, Eliza breathed. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Like her mom’s yoga instructor said. It had a name in Sanskrit. She couldn’t remember it. She focused on relaxing her shoulders, one muscle at a time, eyes glued to the road, the swaying grasses on the side almost hypnotically regular.

“We didn’t intend to make you angry, Eliza,” Alexander said after several more miles of empty road.

Eliza’s eyes were dry and stinging. She knew that. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that she didn’t understand their intentions to begin with. She was afraid of the look she had seen in Alexander’s eyes. He had said he didn’t know there was a gun. John hadn’t said anything. She didn’t have the words to explain it to him. He would have had the words, but he didn’t understand. That was the problem.

“I’m not angry,” she said instead.

“What are you then?” Alexander asked, sounding as if he cared about the answer. But he was good at that tone of voice. He was also good at doing careless things. 

“I was scared for you—both of you. I’m not angry.” She wasn’t sure if that was true, but the sick feeling in her stomach was too dangerous to be further examined. She didn’t want to think about what it meant.

“I fucking am angry,” Mulligan said, breaking into the conversation. Not that he needed to. Eliza had never felt such brooding energy coming off of a person in her life. “You shouldn’t have done that. Either of you.”

“What the fuck should we have done then?” Alexander asked, a little aggressively. Eliza’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. She did not want this conversation to happen in a cramped car with with no space to cool off. Still, she didn’t intervene. Something about the horrible swirling in her belly made her feel unqualified to comment. Mulligan obviously had no such reservations.

“Don’t be an idiot.”

“I’m not being an idiot!” Alexander’s voice was climbing on each syllable. “That was a genuine question. What the fuck else are we supposed to do? Are we supposed to take that shit? Are we supposed to let those bigots think they can get away with it, hurting people like that? I refuse to be shamed about loving someone and fucking showing it. Jesus, Mulligan, you just wouldn’t get it.”

At the word “love”, John had made a somewhat violent movement that drew Eliza’s eyes to the rearview mirror. 

Mulligan just sighed. “Maybe I don’t get it in the way you do, but I do get that while there might be shit worth dying for and certainly worth speaking out against, dying on the lawn of a KFC, bleeding out in front of your friends, is not worth it. It you’re going to be a martyr, at least do it properly.”

The bitterness soaked Mulligan’s voice so thoroughly that it took even Alexander a few moments to come up with a response. Even when he did, it wasn’t a very good one.

“We didn’t know they had a gun.”

Eliza wondered if Alexander realised he was lying.

***

They made it to the northern outskirts of Cincinnati in time for dinner.

The atmosphere in the car was still tense and awkward. Alexander started talking again after another couple hours, gaining speed as he went, a pathetically transparent attempt to break the tension. Lafayette was the only one who played along at all, but even he eventually gave up and just let Alexander monologue, aggressively pretending that nothing was wrong.

“What’s this ‘Skyline’ place on a bunch of the food signs?” Eliza asked in the middle of Alexander ranting about something to do with the EU’s economic policies that she was half convinced even he couldn’t really be interested in. 

“I think it’s a chilli place,” John said, his voice just slightly hoarse. “I’ve never eaten there.”

“I know Cincinnati chilli is a thing, but I’ve never had it.” That was Alexander, apparently willing to give up the money talk in favour of food. “Anyone else?”

No one else had eaten there. “Okay, we’re trying it,” Eliza said. They agreed on that, and somehow that helped a little bit. Food was the answer to everything. Besides, no one had finished eating lunch. To be honest, Eliza felt more nauseous than hungry, but she still wanted to stop. She had turned off the highway, and they were nearly safely stuffing their mouths with food when Alexander, of course, started something. Eliza had quickly learned that he could never leave well enough alone.

“Ok, Mulligan. Before we go in, can I just say—I get that you’re pissed, but it’s done. There’s nothing you can do. It’s time to move on. We said sorry.” They hadn’t, not really. That’s what Eliza expected Mulligan to point out, but he chose a different angle.

 

“Hell, Alex, you know that dumb poster? Sorry is good, change is better? I’m not just getting a sense you’re gonna change. Either of you. You’re reckless. You do shit you shouldn’t be able to, and yeah, you get away with it, but…you’re not gonna be lucky forever.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Alexander said, a little hoarse, but no less aggressive for it.

Mulligan slammed a hand against the dashboard. Everyone jumped. “Dammit, Alex. I know you know it. That’s what scares me.”

“For fuck’s sake. It’s none of your business. You’re not being paid to babysit me.” Lafayette made a sound like he wanted to say something, then decided not to. They were barely off the exit ramp and the car’s atmosphere had gone from lukewarm to stone cold in about a minute. By the time they turned into Skyline’s parking lot, the car was deathly quiet. The beep of the car lock was jarringly loud when they got out.

It turned out that Skyline looked a lot like most fast food places, suspect tiles and alarmingly bright booths, but the whole place smelled like cinnamon and chilli, which was a definite plus. Eliza ordered something called a 3-Way and was happy to let the argument in the car be put to the side until everyone at least got some food in them. Of course, she wasn’t that lucky.

As they made their way to sit down, John and Alexander made a sudden hard left and chose their own table. Eliza was tempted to go after them, but Lafayette put a hand on her shoulder. “Let them be, _mon amie_. We all are needing space.”

Mulligan certainly did. Almost as soon as they sat down, he put his head in his large hands and shook it slowly. “Ugh, fuck. Sorry. I just—Ok, I’m not going to talk about them when they’re right there. I can’t do that, but—ugh.”

“I know it’s frustrating. Laf’s right, though. We all just need a little space right now. I say we eat dinner and then crash early. Everything will look a little better in the morning.” God, she sounded like her mother. It helped though, a little. Eliza had always been good at making other people feel better. She wished she was better at it for herself. 

“What in the world would we do without Eliza?” Lafayette said fondly, reaching out and petting her hair.

Mulligan shook his head, still looking sour. “Not this.”

No, not this indeed. And if John or Alexander had gotten hurt today…

Eliza couldn’t let herself go down that road. She wouldn’t. And yet, she found herself too lost in her own thoughts to mind the awkwardness of the car ride to the motel.

***

“So how long have you known John?” Eliza asked Lafayette. She was sprawled on her mattress, feeling bone-tired and trying to ignore the anxiety that was thrumming in the back of her mind. She needed to call Angelica later.

“Many years. Since before I moved permanently to America.” He was laying on the bed next to her, gangly limbs taking up an absolutely absurd amount of space. Meanwhile, Mulligan looked like he was about to break the flimsy chair in the corner. The three of them were camped out in Eliza’s room and resolutely not speculating over where John and Alexander were, or what they were doing. John hadn’t spoken to anyone who wasn’t Alexander since the incident, and it probably would have been better for everyone if Alexander had kept his mouth shut too. it was none of Eliza’s business, anyway. She tried to focus on Lafayette, who was still talking.

“You know John’s father is in politics. My parents are doctors, but they have also done diplomatic work for France. We met first at a party. I believe we were nine or so. The only not white kids there. We were friends for a while, but I spent most of my time in France. John came over for boarding school one year. He is brilliant, and I love him very much.” Lafayette paused. “But he is also very unhappy, and he makes others unhappy too. It’s not his fault, but it is true.”

Mulligan groaned. “I don’t know how you’re so zen about it. He was being an idiot. They both were.”

“It’s not just that. This whole thing—this trip. It was a stupid idea. I’m sorry,” Eliza said. She had been thinking about it for hours. “It was only a matter of time before we started going for each other’s throats.”

“Or mouths,” Lafayette added unhelpfully.

Eliza flushed and cleared her throat. “We’re supposed to be having a good time. It was just a stupid impulse. I don’t want any of you to think we have to keep doing this. Mulligan, if you want to go ahead to your conference without us, or whatever, I won’t be mad. 

“One little tiny threat to your friends’ lives and you’re willing to back out?” Lafayette asked sardonically. “It was never going to be perfect.

“I know that. I just don’t want anyone to get hurt,” she said, a little sharply.

“That’s not up to you, Eliza,” Mulligan added in his deep, calm voice. Eliza winced. It was something that Angelica and Peggy had been telling her for years. 

“Unless you crash the car. That would be up to you. And it would be bad. Don’t do that. Other than that, you need to let things play out. One impulsive decision was good. Now stick with it,” Lafayette said, neatly closing the subject for the moment. “Cards, anyone?” It wasn’t exactly subtle, but Eliza didn’t complain. He was probably right. There was no reason to freak out just because she was realising how little she could control, how reckless Alexander and John were, and how attached to all of them she already was. When Lafayette pulled out a pack of cards inexplicably stuffed into his jeans, Eliza wondered whether his choice to play “hearts” was pointed. At least it was a good game.

She felt better after playing for a while, but when Lafayette and Mulligan finally went back to their own room, Eliza still just couldn’t face calling Angelica. She texted her instead:

_In Cincinnati tonight, everything fine. Kentucky wasn’t great. x_

Angelica couldn’t pry if they weren’t talking. Although, talking would definitely have helped with the heavy cloud of loneliness that descended over Eliza as she lay in the dark, listening to the loud, ineffective air conditioner. She told herself that she was just crashing from adrenaline, that she would feel better the next day. But a small voice inside her head told her that she wasn’t just lonely, that she was pining.

She didn’t like that voice, so she decided to ignore it. She knew she was being silly, but that didn’t make it any easier to fall asleep.

A long time later, she was just beginning to drift off when she heard the knock at the door. Startled, she bolted upright in bed, listening for another sound.

“Eliza?” A voice said quietly. It was Alexander. Eliza let out all of the air in her lungs in a rush.

“Just a second.” She got out of bed and was halfway to the door before she realised how clingy her nightgown was. Blushing in the dark, she draped herself in a blanket from the bed and opened the door.

Alexander was bouncing on the balls of his feet, the circles under his eyes looking particularly pronounced. His hair was tousled and his shirt was one button off. Eliza drew her eyes back to his face.

“What’s wrong?”

“How do I get Mulligan to stop being mad at me?” It was such a ridiculously childish question that Eliza nearly laughed, but she caught herself in time. Alexander looked painfully earnest.

“Here. Come in.” She turned on the lamp, and they sat on the bed, a very careful two feet apart. As soon as they were settled, Alexander started to babble, sounding more hysterical with every word:

“I just don’t know what I can do. I explained what happened. We were just messing around, and those fucking bigots had no right to act the way they did. If people in this country hide because they’re scared of getting hurt, then nothing is going to change. We have to get out there, be proud, not let anyone stop us. And I tried saying that to Mulligan, but he just won’t get it.“

“Listen. At the risk of sounding like your mother—“  
“I hardly remember what she sounded like anymore, but go on.” Alexander laughed, sharp and a little unhinged. Eliza swallowed hard, feeling a little afraid.

“Alexander,” she tried again. “All I wanted to say was that I think you should apologise to him.”

“What for?”

Eliza gave him a hard stare. “You know what.”

Alexander rolled his eyes, pulling his knees up to his chest. “It’s none of his business the risks I take. He can’t control me. Or John.” 

“Oh, Alexander. It’s not about control. It’s about caring about people, wanting to protect them. It’s—I’m not good with the words, but it’s like he wants you to remember that you’re important. For who you are. Not as symbol for a cause. And it’s—it’s not you versus the world. Or you and John versus the rest of us. It’s not that black and white. Just tell him you know that. That you’ll be careful.”

Alexander was staring at her. Eliza’s heart was beating too hard in her chest. Of course he had come to her, even those his words were so much more elegant than hers. He couldn’t apologise to Mulligan because he really didn’t know. He didn’t understand. Only two feet apart on that bed, the gap between them was huge.

“Is careful worth it? If it doesn’t change anything?” He asked. It was a genuine question this time. He wasn’t trying to bait her. Eliza sighed, looking down at the ugly pattern on the bed sheets. _Yes, it was._ The answer was so obvious to her, but Alexander couldn’t see it. Would never see it if he and John kept hurtling off towards the sun. And who knew, maybe they were even right.

“I don’t know,” she said finally, inadequately. “You asked why Mulligan is so mad. That’s why.”

Somehow, it was enough. Alexander looked at her for a long moment, dark eyes wide. He had finally stopped bouncing. “You’re a good friend, Eliza.”

Then he pushed himself off her bed and walked across the room. At the door, he turned as if he wanted to say something more.

Instead, all he said was “good night,” before slipping out into the hallway once again.

As the sliver of bright light vanished with the closing door, Eliza fell back onto her bed with her hands over her face, trying to breathe deeply.

That was a good conversation. She had been a good friend. 

Eliza started to cry.

***

The next morning, the mood in the car was significantly lighter. Eliza had no idea what Alexander had said to Mulligan, but they were clearly on speaking terms again. Even in John and Alexander were still a little more separated from the rest of the group than they had been before.

Everything was back to normal.

Well, there was maybe a little ache in Eliza’s chest. But that would go away soon. It always did.


	6. Chicago

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything is forgiven and there's a party in Chicago. That doesn't make it any less complicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I SAW HAMILTON LONDON LAST NIGHT YOU GUYS. Oh my God, still reeling. I've had these tickets for more than a year, and ahhhhhhh. Anyway, I should be apologising for how slow my updates are, but it turns out I need to rework more than I expected. I love these characters but they're so damn complicated, and I worry about getting the tone of their interactions. You guys don't care about my writerly angst though, so here's the next chapter.
> 
> P.S. I <3 comments.

“—Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, Gary Indiana. My home sweet home!” Alexander sang from the back of the car. It was like a weight had been lifted off of all of them, and they were all feeling the effect of the clear blue sky and open road. Kentucky was far behind them now, and if driving away from your problems wasn’t really a solution, it seemed to be working for now. 

“What’s that song?” John asked, probably more to shut Alexander up than anything.

“Music Man.” Eliza, shockingly actually knew the answer.

“Very cultured, Eliza dear,” Alexander said. She didn’t dare turn back and risk his smile. 

“I don’t like musicals that much,” John said. Eliza practically heard the cringe as he surely shied away from Alexander’s wrath.

“Not. Like. Musicals?” 

“You are base swine,” Lafayette said haughtily. 

“I bet you only like Les Mis,” John fired back.

“I will have you know it is pronounced Miserrrrrrables.”

“It isn’t even, though.” Alexander cut in. “You tap the r. You don’t batter it with a club. I speak french too, you know.” 

“You do?” John asked.

“ _Bien sur, mon cheri. En fait, c’est mon premier langue, avant l’anglais et l’espanol._ ”

Eliza knew enough high school french to figure out that he was saying that french was his first language. She wondered where he’d grown up, but didn’t want to bring it up. For someone who talked so much, he never so much as referenced his life before college. There must be a reason for it.

“What about you, Mulligan?” She asked instead, trying to bring him into the conversation. Whatever Alexander, and maybe John, had said to him had clearly had an effect, and he wasn’t glowering anymore, but he was still very quiet. Eliza didn’t think he’d slept very much. To her slight surprise, he was happy to answer.

“I mostly like the period musicals. They’ve got the best costumes. I loved Chicago.” 

“He had it comin’. He had it comin’. He only had himself to blame…” Of course that launched Alexander into a full performance of Cell Block Tango. Lafayette joined in enthusiastically—she thought mostly in order to say ‘lip shits’—and Eliza sang where she knew the words.

“You have a beautiful voice, Eliza,” Alexander said when they finally finished.

“Thanks.” She turned away to hide her blush, trying to get the words out of her head.

_He only had himself to blame…_

***

“I have a surprise,” Lafayette announced as they sat in the traffic outside of Chicago. “I am sick of motels.”

“That’s not exactly a surprise,” Mulligan said.

“Hush. You are not letting me get to the surprise.”

“Sorry.”

“I have booked us into a nice hotel.” He waited expectantly.

“Thank you, Lafayette. That’s very kind,” Eliza said, because no one else was saying anything.

“How nice is nice, Laf?” Alexander asked, a little suspiciously.

“It is nice. But it is also a surprise.”

It turned out that the hotel was the level of nice where there was free, ice cold water with fruit in it sitting in the lobby. Not the fanciest place Eliza had ever stayed, but more than she would have been willing to pay for herself. The concierge did not so much as blink when he took in their slightly strange party, but Eliza was pretty sure that was their training. They definitely stood out.

“Right this way, gentlemen. Lady.” He led them up an elevator that was mirrored on all sides and through several long hallways. “Like The Shining,” Alexander said under his breath. He was fidgeting.

“What’s wrong? You okay?” Eliza whispered back.

“Fine. Why wouldn’t I be?” He said. Eliza wanted to press, but they had already reached their rooms.

“A suite and a double room, with a connecting door. We hope you will enjoy your stay. Brochures inside the room tell you everything you need to know about the hotel, and the front desk is available 24/7 if you have any further questions.” He bowed slightly before leaving. They called their thanks after him, a little awkwardly. Eliza felt too young to be talked to like that. She could feel Alexander next to her, rolling on the balls of his feet. Eliza had to fight the urge to grab hold of him and make him stand still for two seconds.

The rooms were plush and elegant and made Eliza feel unkempt and dirty. She made a beeline for the shower. When she came out, the guys had scattered. Mulligan was on the phone, apparently talking to a customer. Lafayette was reading the elaborate hotel brochure—which looked a lot like a fancy dinner menu, and John was nowhere to be found. Alexander was laying on his back on the floor, his legs shooting straight up the wall and gently kicking off of it from time to time. For once, he didn’t have his laptop in front of him.

“Oooh, there is a rooftop cocktail bar!” Lafayette sat straight up in bed. “We have to go!”

“Only someone who isn’t yet twenty-one would say that we have to go to a cocktail bar. They’re overrated. And overpriced.” Mulligan said, comfortably snuggling himself further into the bed.

“I’m 23 and I still like them,” John called from the guys’ bedroom. 

“Seconded,” Alexander said, kicking the wall a bit harder for emphasis.

“Oh fine, you children,” Mulligan said good-naturedly. “What’s your vote, Eliza?”

“I suppose it is Chicago after all. It might be fun.” Or it might be disastrous. Eliza had never liked bars very much. They were too loud and unpredictable. Good music and dancing were one thing, but whenever Angelica, or even Peggy, took her out somewhere, things also seemed to get pretty messy. Considering how outlandish the trip had been so far, Eliza didn’t really want to consider what a night out could bring. On the other hand, all the boys were in a good mood again, Lafayette was being very generous, they were young, and this was Chicago.

Everything would be fine.

***

Everything was not fine.

At least it started out well enough. Eliza had a good time digging through her borrowed wardrobe to find a dress. Even though it was only a couple of days ago, she hardly remembered what she’d packed. With everything laid out on her bed, she found a pink dress that looked like it might work. It hugged her body more than she was used to, but the neck was high and the skirt not so short that she would have to constantly be pulling it down all night. She still wasn’t sure, though, so she went out for a second opinion from the boys.

“Eliza, you look absolutely stunning,” Lafayette said the moment she turned the corner. He was sitting on the chair with a glass of champagne, half-heartedly picking through his mane of hair.  
“Amazing, girl.” That was Mulligan. John didn’t say anything, but he was staring at her, almost rudely. Alexander, now perched on the arm of a chair, didn’t seem to be paying much attention, and Eliza briefly wondered whether he was faking disinterest before chiding herself for her vanity. And she had figured out what was bothering her.

“Thanks. I don’t know. It’s just…pink is kind of my sister’s colour. Angelica wears it all the time. I have a blue—“

“Chérie, your sister does not get an entire colour all to herself. She isn’t here, and you look exquisite,” said Lafayette.

Eliza caught eyes with Alexander for just a second, and then they both looked away. She couldn’t read his expression. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m being silly. Let me just get some makeup on.”

When she returned, Lafayette had decided to actually share the champagne, and she was handed a glass as soon as she walked in. 

“Come, _cherie_ , let us celebrate!” Lafayette announced.

“What are we celebrating?” She asked, taking a sip. It was light and delicious. She would have to be careful. 

“Life!” 

“And Lafayette’s money,” Mulligan said drily, taking an appreciative sip of the champagne. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to stop me from ever getting to California.”

“Alas! My plot has been discovered!” Everybody laughed. 

By the time they left, Eliza had had two glasses of the champagne and was feeling pleasantly tipsy. It was nice, for once, not to be worrying about everybody. They were all here in this hotel room, laughing and talking. She wasn’t thinking about Alexander’s weird mood from earlier. She was so happy that she didn’t even really notice that she was the last one to get moving. She touched up her makeup, looking at herself in the hallway mirror. Pretty, she thought. Not stunning, like Angelica was, but something else. 

“You look like you belong in a ballroom,” Alexander was standing right behind her. He looked unfairly beautiful in a suit that was a little too big for him. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes over bright. Eliza swallowed.

“My dress is too short,” she said, stupidly. He raised his eyebrows at her. 

“I wasn’t talking about your dress.”

“Where’s John?” She asked, too quickly. 

“Smoking a joint with Mulligan,” he said, completely unselfconsciously. “Lafayette’s getting them. It’s time to go. Take my arm?”

Eliza stared at him. If she didn’t know better she’d say that he was blissfully unaware of her complicated feelings for him, that this was all in the name of friendship, but that couldn’t possibly true. Why had he kissed her, that night on the landing? What had it meant? Nothing, when John was in the room. Nothing ever. But still…

“I don’t need an escort. This isn’t a ball,” she said, a little too sharply. He blinked, then smiled again.  
“Right you are. This is a party. Come on, then. I’ll follow you.” She hated how everything he said made her blush. It was a relief to get to bar. 

It was indeed a party. The top floor and roof of their hotel doubled as a dance floor, and although it was only a little after eleven when they got there, the place was already hopping. Eliza had worried her outfit might be a little too formal, but she soon found herself surrounded by women spilling drinks on dresses that were much more expensive than hers. The men were obviously dressed more casually, but Mulligan leaned over a couple to times to tell her the exorbitant prices of some of their shirts. Eliza had been to parties like this before, but not many, and none where she had no idea who the host was. She wondered vaguely whether there was a guest list and how exactly Lafayette had gotten them on it, but it didn’t feel important.

Eliza found herself being handed another drink, swallowed into the crowd. It was undulating, wavelike, pushing Eliza into a corner and then pulling her back into the centre again. Quickly, she lost her friends. She spun around, looking for them. Lafayette and Mulligan were both tall and should be easy to spot, but…

“Looking for someone?” A young man with blond hair and California tanned skin had come up to her. Eliza smiled cautiously.

“My friends just went for drinks.”

“Did they? Do you think they’ll mind if I steal you for a bit?”

“Steal…?” Eliza couldn’t tell if the guy was actually being creepy or if she was just nervous and a little drunk, but she didn’t like it. “I should wait for them.”

“Okay, then, let’s talk. Who are you wearing?”

“Um…I haven’t…I’m just borrowing from a friend. I think the design—”

“Here, I’ll check for you.” He reached for her neck. Eliza shied away, but almost as soon as she did so, a solid hand landed on her shoulder. She jumped.

“There you are, _mon amour_. I have been looking for you. Let us dance.” Lafayette whisked her away from the man faster than her brain could process. They were swaying together on the dance floor before she could get her thoughts in any sort of order.

“Thanks, Laf. You’re such a good friend.”

“Would you like me to be a better friend by going back there and punching him?” Lafayette asked. He was joking, but his smile was unsettling. Eliza very intentionally did not think about Kentucky.

“No, I think that was enough. Can we actually dance, though? Not like…slow sway?” She asked. The music was picking up.

Lafayette grinned, nicer this time. “I thought you would never ask.”

Lafayette was a very good dancer. Eliza was more the bopping along type, but he pulled her around into more and more complex moves. Eliza could feel the other people in the room watching her, and her face flushed, but she was grinning too. The tall glass windows reflected the lights of the city behind them, blurring and melting into the coloured disco lights. People sang and shouted and laughed. They were making so much noise, and yet the city, right there, looked so silent. There must be a million people, out there dancing somewhere, but from far away they were all just needles of light. 

Eliza didn’t know how long her thoughts followed those paths as her feet danced in rhythm to Lafayette’s, but eventually the spell broke. Eliza stumbled to the side of the dance floor on feet that were just now realising how sore they were. “I will get us some water, yes?” Lafayette asked. Any efforts he had made to tame his hair had been wildly unsuccessful. Eliza smiled at him when she nodded, hoping her expression would say what her words couldn’t, that she was so grateful he was her friend, that she thanked God for bringing him into her life.

Maybe Lafayette understood a little, because he said “It is just water,” before leaving her leaning against a small table. She took a deep breath, shivering after the sweaty heat of the dance floor.

“Oh, it’s you.” Eliza turned around sharply. John was sitting on a bench against the wall, half-hidden in shadows. He didn’t sound particularly happy to see her.

“John? Are you all right?” She sat down next to him and pulled off her heels.

“‘’M always all right,” he said wearily. He was a lot more drunk than she was. 

“You can tell me what’s wrong.” She didn’t really expect him to take her up on it. John wasn’t big on sharing feelings. 

“I used to go to this shit all the time,” he said after a minute. Eliza looked around, trying to figure out what he was talking about. John noticed her confusion. “Rich people parties. My dad—there were all these charity fundraisers. All these glittery people, smiling and feeling satisfied with themselves. Thinking they’re so good. Good people. But if they knew about me, if they knew anything, they’d have spit on me. Already look at me weird because my dad fucked the laundry woman. Shit. You don’t care about this.”

“My dad’s a politician too. I know how that stuff can be.” She wanted to say that it wasn’t all bad, that some of the people were genuine. That politics was a hard job. But she knew that that wasn’t what he needed to hear right now. 

“I don’t know why Alex is mad at me,” John said abruptly.

“Alexander’s mad at you? He didn’t seem mad.”

“He never does, does he? Fuck if I know why, anyway. I wish it didn’t bother me. It’s just like, I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”

“Try.” 

“You—“ He looked at her then, eyes, wide and a little glazed. He stopped saying whatever he was going to say.

“Sometimes I feel like he’s going to swallow me whole,” he said instead. Eliza wished she didn’t understand. 

“You should talk to him.”

John snorted. “You always want people to talk.” 

“It usually helps.”  
“It’s easy for you.” It wasn’t. It really wasn’t. If John feared being swallowed, then Eliza feared being ripped apart.

“Do you want me to talk to him first?” She asked.

“Don’t know where he is. Ran off.” John folded further back into the wall, not wanting to think about it.

Eliza couldn’t help the prickle of worry. “Was he angry?”

“Pissed.”

“We should find him. As soon as Lafayette gets back.”

“Lafayette?” John asked blankly.

“We were dancing. He’ll be back in a minute.”

It had been a while, and it was a while longer before he reappeared. Eliza was feeling slightly unpleasantly drunk and very tired. John wasn’t saying anything at all. She told herself not to worry about Alexander. This was why she didn’t like these things. All the fun moments were broken up by endless periods of boredom or anxiety. And in the end, it was always Eliza who had to put everyone back together again.

“John! You found Eliza!” Lafayette was back, impossibly still grinning. Their dance felt like it had been an eternity ago. Eliza forced her shoes back onto complaining feet and stood up.

“We need to find Alexander. He and John were fighting, and we don’t know where he is,” Eliza said matter of factly.

Lafayette frowned briefly, then smiled again. “A quest, I think, is in order.” 

“I’m staying here,” John said dully.

“Are you sure? It might be better if you—“

“Don’t mother me, Eliza,” he cut her off. Eliza was a little stung, but didn’t have time to dwell on it before Lafayette’s strong hand was wrapped around her bicep, pulling them back into the crowd. 

As it turned out, the quest didn’t take very long. A few minutes of pushing through sweaty bodies found them near the bathrooms where they saw Mulligan talking to a group of people. As soon as he spotted them, he disengaged.

“Thank God. I’ve been fending off Alexander’s fan club for the past fifteen minutes.”

“His fan club?”

“Apparently he managed to make lots of friends before he freaked out and went into hiding. There’s a little staircase to the roof by the bathrooms. I was told to keep anyone from following him, but…Eliza, would you do the honours?”

Eliza sighed. “I’ve been flooded with requests already.”

Mulligan shrugged. “Well. He’s already mad at John, I’m supposed to be guarding, and Laf can be a bit…much.”

“Right.”

“Good luck.”

The stairs looked like maintenance stairs, set in the shadows a few feet back from the restrooms. Of course Alexander would have found them. 

She climbed up, careful not to get her heels caught in the grates and trying to avoid touching the handrails. They looked sticky. When she reached the top, the night air hit her like a slap to the face, cold enough to make her gasp.

She could hear sounds of the party floating over what looked like a hedge. Eliza could never quite get used to the urban habit of putting plants on roofs. This side, though, was quiet and empty.

Except for Alexander.

She spotted him immediately, sitting up against the guardrail right at the edge. His arms were folded over the rail, his legs sticking out underneath. He looked around at the sound of her shoes.

“Come to break me out of my tantrum?” He asked, without preamble.

“I came to ask what’s wrong. You seemed fine earlier.”

He laughed unkindly. “I’m sure your psychology degree must have taught you that when a person seems fine that means that they definitely are.”

Eliza was stung, but she took a step forward anyway. “Stop that.”

“I’m not mad at you.”

“Then don’t mock me. I’m only trying to help.”

“That’s all you ever do.” This wasn’t the first time that someone had said as much to Eliza. It wasn’t usually meant as a compliment. She sat down next to him on the roof and tried to stop her shivering. She wasn’t successful because a moment later he was shrugging off his jacket and putting it around her shoulders. He did it businesslike, as if he didn’t want to the kindness to be misconstrued as something personal. Eliza swallowed. She needed to explain. Why wasn’t she better with words?

“I’m being sincere,” she tried.

“I know. I told you. I’m not mad.” He smiled a little, the real smile, not the huge grin he wore when he was trying to antagonise people. Eliza was a little taken aback. 

“Ok. You should talk to John. About…whatever it is.”

“He didn’t open his heart to you?” Alexander asked, mocking again.

“He’s not that hard to read,” Eliza said coolly. Alexander looked away.

“He really isn’t. Can you imagine that, Eliza? Just being yourself, all the time, for all the world to see?”

Chicago was beautiful from here, unmediated by glass, glittering and close enough to touch. “You’re like that too,” Eliza said.

He gestured at Chicago as a whole. “Champagne and exclusive rooftop parties and four hundred dollar polos? You think that’s who I am?  
“That’s not who anybody is.” That was what was bothering him. Eliza had never even thought—but of course she hadn’t. She had been raised with wealth. Alexander was different. 

“I sold the mattress that my mother died on. It might have been contagious, but I needed to eat, and she hadn’t owned anything else. Not really that, either,” he said flatly. Eliza looked at him. Hair pulled back into an elegant ponytail, slight bags under impossibly wide eyes. There was nothing to say to that, really.

“John doesn’t know that.”

“And you won’t tell him. You’re like a priest. No, an angel.”

Eliza laughed uncomfortably, ignore the creeping intensity in his voice, his smell wrapped around her, soaked into the jacket. “I’m really not. I just think you should talk. I know that you and he—“ she couldn’t bring herself to finish that sentence. Didn’t know how to.

“Mm,” he said, and that didn’t tell her anything at all. There was a long silence. “Are you sure?” Eliza looked at him blankly, no idea what he was talking about. He stared intensely at her for a second, and then nodded. “Yes. Of course. Let’s go back down.” He pushed himself up fluidly, careless of the twenty story drop right in front of him. Eliza couldn’t shake the feeling that she hadn’t fully understood the conversation they were having. By the time she’d made her way to her feet and straightened her dress, Alexander was at the top of the stairs.

“What are you waiting for?” He asked, far too gently. Then he disappeared down the stairs.

By the time Eliza made it back to the main party a few seconds later, a switch had been flipped. Alexander had traded melancholy in for manic energy. It was more than a little unsettling to Eliza, who was starting to get whiplash.

Alexander didn’t even look to see if she’d followed him down. In the time they’d been up there, John had decided to come over after all, and he and Lafayette were talking quietly to each other. Alexander breezed over and spun John by the shoulder. “John. I need to apologise to you,” he said at once, and he pulled him away from the rest of them. They did not return.

“You, mon amie, are a miracle worker,” Lafayette said, giving her a hug. Eliza was still standing there, trying to process what had happened. All of a sudden, she felt very tired.

“It’s more like she actually pays attention to the feelings of those around her,” Mulligan teased gently. “Now that the current crisis is over, shouldn’t we be trying to have some actual fun?”

“Of course. Eliza, name your drink of choice, queen of the peace talks.” Eliza would have rather gone to bed, but Lafayette’s smile was just begging her to try to have a little fun. 

She ended up having mixed results. Eliza drank enough so that everything was a little shiny, but not as much as anyone else. She danced with Lafayette and Mulligan, and once, briefly, with Alexander, before he and John retreated to some dark corner. She got offers from a few guys and a woman and hoped she wasn’t blushing too badly when she turned them down. Mulligan told her she should have said yes, and she told him she would leave him behind if he said anything else.

She didn’t know what time it was when they finally stumbled back down to their rooms. Eliza was thoroughly looking forward to having her own space to curl up in. Her ears were ringing just a little bit. She collapsed onto the bed.

A second later, there was a knock at the door. She sighed and pulled herself back up.

“Yes?”

It was Mulligan and Lafayette. Mulligan didn’t beat around the bush. “John and Alexander are having sex in our room. Can we crash?”

Eliza’s heart did something weird. “Yeah. Of course. I can take the chair.”

“Do not be ridiculous. We will sleep on the floor.”

“No, I couldn’t…” It was a relief to have something as trivial as sleeping arrangements to argue about, and Eliza may have gotten a little bit carried away debating it. By the time she had finally caved to Lafayette’s kind but rather insistent argument that she should take the bed, Mulligan was already snoring in the chair.

“Well that solves that problem, I suppose,” Eliza said drily, glancing over at Mulligan. Lafayette didn’t laugh. She looked back at him. They were both sitting on the bed, half curled up. His hair had reverted to its natural chaos, and his cheeks were flushed red from alcohol and arguing. He bit his lip. Eliza waited too long to say something.

“You can kiss me, if you want,” he said into the silence. He bared his teeth in a crooked smile. Eliza opened her mouth, closed it, shook her head.

“I appreciate the offer, but…” she trailed off anxiously, waiting for his response. Fortunately, Lafayette smiled, taking it in stride like he did everything else.

“Truly, Eliza, it is amazing how good you are at avoiding bad decisions. Congratulations.”

That made Eliza laugh, but only briefly. However ‘good’ she was being, it didn’t make her feel any better. 

“Eliza. Do you want to talk about it?” He was a better friend than anyone gave him credit for. Eliza smiled and closed her eyes.

“No. Tell me about France.”

***

There was a heavy arm on her waist when Eliza woke up the next morning. She froze for a second before realising it was only Lafayette. Carefully, she rolled away from his absurdly long octopus limbs. She was still wearing last night’s dress. Eliza grimaced and glanced at the clock.

Only a few minutes past nine, but that was late for her. Her head was pounding, and her mouth was dry. She hated being hungover. Peggy always teased her about being a wimp because she never let herself get to throw up level hangovers, but Peggy didn’t complain when Eliza held her hair. 

Groggily, Eliza drank a few glasses of water from the sink, then texted room service. Because texting room service was apparently a thing you could do now. Lafayette and Mulligan were still out cold by the time Eliza got the text back to say the food was outside.

Sure enough, there was a cart outside the door, piled high with eggs and pancakes and glasses of orange juice.

“Planning a feast?” Eliza jumped.

Alexander was coming down the corridor, absurdly awake, eating a muffin out of one hand and drinking from a huge coffee with the other. Eliza was acutely aware of what a mess her hair was as well as the fact that she still hadn’t changed out of her dress. She put on a brave face.

“I thought I’d order breakfast. Seems you had a good night,” she said, almost pointedly.

Alexander smiled wolfishly. “You could say that.” Eliza’s throat was still very dry.

“Mulligan and Laf crashed with me.”

“Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry at all.

She nodded to the muffin. “You still hungry?”

“Absolutely.”


	7. Wisconsin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fireworks, phone calls, and the calm before the storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is this? A timely update? I'm shocked too, guys. Warnings for excessive pop culture references and Wisconsin jokes in this chapter. The cheese before the angst. 
> 
> Reviews are always appreciated, and I hope you enjoy it!

They were back on the road a little after noon, and the conversation turned, for once, to their destination. 

“I do not like the heat,” Lafayette declared authoritatively.

“And yet you’re going to California. You’re so complex,” Mulligan said sarcastically.

“Don’t pretend you didn’t spend 20 minutes yesterday telling me exactly which fashion exhibitions you needed to go to, Mulligan. I sense your desire to network.” That was John.

“Very true. And much more productive than your reasons,” Mulligan shot back. 

“Getting as far as the Continental United States will let me get away from my father is a very productive thing to do.”

“At least you’re honest.”

Alexander was in the passenger’s seat, looking at something on his phone. He didn’t join the conversation even though he’d been the first to back Mulligan up when he’d suggested LA. 

“Actually, do any of you have to be back home at a certain time? My PhD program starts in the beginning of June.” Eliza said. Just over two weeks away. It felt like an eternity, like she’d never been in college or gotten a psychology degree. Everything about the past few days felt completely divorced from her normal life, unreal. Even the fact that it had only been a few days was too much for Eliza to wrap her head around. 

“No plans,” Alexander said, a little shortly. He was still looking at his phone.

“You know you have to actually go to interviews if you want someone to hire you,” Mulligan said lightly. “Your fancy Columbia Law degree won’t get you everything.” Right. Angelica had said that he was in law school. Despite his obvious intensity, it was hard to imagine. Hard to imagine any system that could contain him, really. 

Alexander sighed dramatically. “No one want to hire me. I’ve tried. My resume isn’t strong enough even with Columbia. Then there’s—ugh, never mind. The point is let’s fucking go to California.”

The night before, he had told her that he wasn’t really who he said he was. While Eliza didn’t really believe him, it was obvious that he was hiding something. If she knew him at all, probably several somethings. Eliza’s instinct was to dig, but she held herself back. She didn’t have a right to know anything about him. Just because…well, there wasn’t a reason. 

Once they cleared the traffic that permanently surrounds Chicago, Eliza steered them north into Wisconsin. A state she had never been to before.

“How does every exit have a cheese store?” She asked an hour later. The car was quiet, Mulligan and Lafayette napping.

“Wisconsin are cheese-heads. It’s a sports thing,” John said from his position with his forehead pressed against the window.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Eliza told him.

“About as much sense as the Dallas North Stars, yeah. I mean, just be grateful it’s not super racist.”

“Don’t get me started,” Alexander said.

“We won’t,” Eliza said, with Mulligan joining in groggily.

John had other ideas. “Oh, come on. The Redskins is just traditional, you know?” He was grinning as he said it, and Alexander clearly knew he was joking, but that did not stop Alexander from entering a full blown rant.

They were saved, as it so happened, by the Dells.

“…like saying The N— are those waterslides?”

“Wisconsin Dells,” Eliza informed him. “We passed a sign.” 

“We are not stopping. I allow candy factories, but I draw the line at amusement parks. We are here on serious business,” Lafayette said primly, and then slightly ruined the effect with an enormous stretching yawn.

“You’re full of shit,” Alexander responded, still distracted. “This place looks insane.”

“Capitalist pig dogs,” added Lafayette. 

Despite Alexander practically licking the windows, they kept driving. Soon the waterslides disappeared to be replaced by yet more fields of wheat and barley.

“Hey, does anyone know why there are so many fireworks stores?” Mulligan asked. Eliza had noticed them too. There were countless warehouses advertising Big Bang and Colour Explosion. 

“We should buy fireworks!” John said, suddenly very animated.

“Seconded!” Alexander added, unsurprisingly. 

“That sounds good,” Lafayette said.

“Not too American for you?” Eliza teased.

“I like explosions.”

Mulligan laughed. “Getting more American by the second.” 

“I am not even going to argue that.” 

And so they pulled into a huge, empty lot, somewhere in the middle of Wisconsin. A gust of wind fought Eliza as she opened the car door. It was sunny, but the wind blew straight across the wide open space. Together, the five of them trekked towards the relatively small warehouse which advertised itself as “Frank’s Fantastic Fireworks”.

Eliza really didn’t know what to expect, but it turned out that there were hundreds of different kinds of fireworks, even at one of the smaller warehouses. It wasn’t yet close to the Fourth of July, so the place was quiet and relatively empty, almost eerie. Still, Eliza was drawn in by the fantastical names and mysterious packaging. There were Roman Candles, Sparklers, Smoke Bombs, something called a Snake that Alexander just had to make an immature joke about. John laughed at him.

More than once, Eliza found herself confiscating a particularly dangerous looking item from one of the boys. Mulligan was helping monitor, which was good, because she absolutely certain that Alexander could slip something ridiculous past her if he really wanted to. 

Eventually, the boys were satisfied with their loot, and they made their way to the register, laying down a pile of minor explosives. Eliza fully expected the young man working there to ID them, or at least give them a few dirty looks, but he just smiled pleasantly. “Going up to your cabin? First weekend of the year, eh? Best time to be out on the lake I always say.”

“Yeah, we’re psyched,” Alexander agreed, turning his megawatt smile on the poor man, who was having to busy himself with the scanner to avoid blushing. Eliza wondered whether he was falling into a crisis of sexuality. She smiled a little to herself. It was nice to be reminded that she wasn’t the only one who had this problem. Still. All the more reason not to let it get to her.

And it wasn’t getting to her. They laughed a lot that afternoon, certainly more than they had since Kentucky. It felt amazing. As soon as they were back on the road, the conversation turned to how they were going to acquire a lake.

“You’d need to buy property,” Mulligan said sensibly.

“Done,” Lafayette said.

“You’re going to go broke at this rate,” Mulligan said.

“Not if I stop paying you. Ayyyyy.” Mulligan punched him on the arm. Alexander, who was sitting between them, had to squirm out of the way.

“Hey! No but come on. There’s got to be some lake just lying around here. This is lake country. There can’t be cabins on every single one.”

“Especially not at the end of May. August is the vacation month,” John added.

“What he said.”

“So what, I’m just looking off the road for a lake with a sign that says LOITER HERE or what?”  
“Don’t be ridiculous. Do look for signs that say FOR SALE though. That one might work.” Sometimes Eliza thought that Alexander’s timing just might be divine. Sure enough, there was a plot of land that branched off to the right with a sign in the yard. Beyond it Eliza could make out a small, dark house, and some shimmering water.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to go so close to the highway?”

“I will bribe anyone who tries to stop us,” Lafayette said airily.

“Check your privilege, man,” Alexander said.

“I will have you know it is your privilege now too. And my honour.” 

Alexander scowled.

It turned out that the stretch of land behind the sign was quite large, which was good, because Eliza still wasn’t really comfortable with the idea of them setting up camp in full view of any passing cop cars. They had had entirely enough excitement for the moment, Eliza thought. She was worried enough about adding explosives to the mix.

Luckily, there didn’t seem to be any other houses on the lake. Maybe because it was more pond than lake sized, but that suited them perfectly. Alexander and John busied themselves unloading blankets from the car, and promptly trying to smother each other with them. Mulligan had decided that someone needed to look carefully at what exactly these fireworks did, a task he took upon himself. Lafayette had taken to inexplicably running laps around the entirety of the lake.

Mulligan shook his head fondly. “It’s a little whack how much he reminds me of a puppy sometimes.”

“Puppies don’t speak as many languages as Laf does, though,” Alexander called over. He had an uncanny ability to seem to be engaged in something completely different and then jump right into another conversation. 

“Mind your own business, unemployed lawyer!” Mulligan called back. “Hey, Eliza, can you figure out what this shit means?” He handed her one of the manuals. Eliza read it over. 

“I think it means that it’s too dangerous for us. We’ll leave this one.” Eliza stood up to put it in the trunk. 

“We might have to put a sign on it. OFF LIMITS or something.”

“Seriously? If we do that then John or Alexander will absolutely set it off. I wouldn’t rule out Lafayette either, to be honest.”

Mulligan laughed wryly. “Too fucking true.”

Eliza packed away the fireworks and slammed the trunk. She looked at the minivan for a second. A strange thought occurred to her.

“Do you ever feel like we’re the parents in a road trip movie?” Eliza asked.

Mulligan laughed. “No. Road trip parents are always super annoying and irresponsible.”

That made Eliza laugh too. “I was traumatised when they killed the dog in Wayne’s World.” 

Mulligan gave her a look like he had no idea what she was talking about, then sobered. “I mean really I fucking hate that mom/dad of the friend group joke thing. It’s just a crazy idea to have about a relationship with your friends,” he said passionately.

“I don’t know. I’m always flattered. I like being seen as responsible,” Eliza said.

“Yeah. Well, it suits you,” Mulligan sounded just the slightest bit begrudging, and Eliza frowned. 

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“It’s nothing. Hey, Laf was saying one of us should go to the liquor store for some Wisconsin beer. Apparently it’s a huge thing here. If you want, I can—”

“I’ll go.” Not that she wasn’t sick of driving, but a little bit of alone time actually sounded great. Besides, it was her car.

“I really do have a license, you know,” Mulligan said, with a slight edge to his voice.

“I know that. I just want to drive. It’s not about you.”

“Oh, I know that too.”

Eliza shifted a little uncomfortably. “Right. I do feel bad about stranding you lot in a field while I go try to find a town.”

“Who are you stranding in a field?” Alexander was walking over, surprisingly without John. Eliza noticed that his cellphone was clutched very tightly in his right hand.

“I am. I’m going to the liquor store. Want to come help me make selections?” She offered completely innocently, not thinking about it at all, but when Alexander smiled too wide and said he’d love to, she realised her mistake. What had happened to wanting to be alone?

Partially, it was Alexander’s fault. For someone who was so clearly smarter than everyone in the room and knew it, he was surprisingly easy to talk to. He could come with some comically weird comment about anything they passed, up to and including miles of corn. It was strange, just having the two of them in the car. Eliza found herself very glad for the distraction of driving and reading road signs.

“I don’t feel like this is as fun for you as it is for us,” Alexander said abruptly.

“Do you always do that? Just drop stuff like that without any warning?” Eliza couldn’t help but ask. She snuck a glance at Alexander. He was shrugging, still slightly playful.

“It’s all connected in my head.”

“There must be palaces up there,” she said, not annoyed enough. “And I am having fun. This isn’t like anything I’ve ever done before. Maybe it’s not obvious. I don’t know. I’m not—I can’t—I’m not like you guys.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re all so smart and funny and spontaneous. Everything is dramatic and important when you’re around. And I’m just—me.”

“You sell yourself short, Eliza.”

“That’s another difference.” She tries a smile. It doesn’t work out very well.

“You know we’re not just some unified blob of boys, either. We have our differences, we don’t all fit together.”

“You and John do.” Why could she never stop herself around him?

“Mm. True. We were basically made for each other.” Eliza’s throat closed up. “Who knows, maybe you’re right. You are different. We don’t deserve you.”

Eliza couldn’t have been more relieved to turn into a liquor store parking lot. Once they started comparing labels, they could go back to safer topics. Alexander moved on smoothly, as if he had no idea that his words were deadly weapons. But every once in awhile, she would catch him looking at her loading up the car, and she thought he knew exactly the power he held. It would be better if he didn’t. 

When they finally got back to the lake with their haul, after a nervous minute when Eliza couldn’t find the turn, it was a relief to get the other guys back as a buffer. Maybe she was a coward, but she practically shoved Alexander into John’s arm before going back to the car to get blankets.

She waited for night to fall.

***

Eliza watched Lafayette and Mulligan’s silhouettes as they ran about the other side of the lake, setting off jet after jet of bright light. They weren’t quite professional fireworks, but big enough that Eliza had to swallow a little nervousness. She was glad that Mulligan had taken such an interest in the fireworks or she would have been genuinely freaked out. As it was, she leant back on the gently sloping hillside. A firefly buzzed by her face, barely visible against the explosions in the air.

“Oh say does that star-spangled bannerrr…” Alexander sang mockingly from a little ways below her. He was propped up on his elbows next to John, watching the show. Alexander was so generally talented that Eliza couldn’t say she was surprised that he was a good singer as well, but she was a little shaken when John joined in, sweet and a little shyer. In perfect harmony. 

Eliza remembered that conversation with Alexander when everyone else was asleep. When he’d admitted that he was afraid of falling. Of jumping. At the time, she hadn’t known what that meant. It was amazing how quickly everything could change.

Something orange that looked suspiciously like a goldfish burst in a shower of sparks.

John and Alexander leaned into one another and kissed. They were outlined against the sky and the lake, haloed by fireworks. It looked like something out of a romance movie. On a purely visual level, Eliza couldn’t help but appreciate it. They were beautiful. They were brave. They were destined. 

That conversation in the car came back to her again. It hadn’t ever really gone away. There was a thought that she’d had, something—oh. She remembered. She had thought back in Chicago, bitter and tired and drunk, that of all the things she had anticipated in her life, she had never expected to become Nick Carraway.

Of all the memorable moments from that trip that would stick with Eliza long after most of her college memories had faded, this was perhaps the strongest. Alexander and John, young and hungry, set afire on a warm Wisconsin night.

It was beautiful and triumphant and she was enjoying herself and she had never been more profoundly lonely.

***

“Hi, Ange. Are you on your way to work?” It was morning. Eliza was walking across the field, picking up the remains from the previous night’s fireworks. She could just see Alexander, about a hundred yards away, also on the phone. He never told any of them who he was talking to.

“Eliza?”

“Oh, right. Sorry. Got distracted. Are you on your way to work?”

“Already there. Eliza, are you okay?”

Eliza was a little taken aback. “Of course, I’m fine. Why?”

“You haven’t been calling me like clockwork. And, I don’t know—I worry that you forget to make sure that _you’re_ happy.”

“Why is everyone so worried about my happiness lately?” It was nice, but a little frustrating too. 

“Who else?” Her sister asked sharply.

Eliza blushed. “Alexander said he didn’t think I was enjoying himself like they were. But, frankly, I don’t think I’m capable of enjoying anything the way Alexander does everything. And he and John have really hit it off, so it makes sense that they’d be extra happy. Anyway, I’m fine. I really am. So you can stop worrying.”

“Wait, John who?” 

“Oh. John Laurens. I thought I told you.” 

Eliza could hear her sister take a breath through the phone. “John Laurens and Alexander Hamilton are fucking?” Eliza instinctively looked around for Alexander, even though there was no possibility he could hear what her sister was saying.

“They’re doing more than that. They’re pretty perfect for each other. How do you know John?” It stood to reason that her older sister would know absolutely everyone that Eliza interacted with in life. 

“I don’t. But John is—never mind. It isn’t any of my business.” Angelica wasn’t nosy, but she loved information. And she told Eliza everything. Eliza’s eyes narrowed. Her sister was hiding something. But it would be rude to push. Just to make sure…

“I trust you, but there isn’t anything I need to know, is there? No reason for me not to be traveling in a car with four strange young men across the country?” She asked.

Angelica laughed, loosening up. “Look at my baby sister, all grown up. No, I’m sure it’ll all work out in the end.”

“I thought I was supposed to be the optimist.”

“You weren’t doing a good enough job, so big sister had to step in. Don’t worry, she’ll go back to her usual pessimism in a minute. Speaking of which, I really do need to work when I am at work. Can’t have my crazy little sister problems getting me fired.”

“That’s Peggy’s job. Ok, love you.”

“Love you too.” 

Eliza hung up and headed back to the car, still full of questions. John greeted her, bleary-eyed as he came around the side of the van.

“Morning, ‘Liza. What great adventure are you going to take us on today?” His crooked smile was highlighting his dimples. What did Angelica know about John that she didn’t want to tell Eliza?

“Well, John. I think we will probably make it to the distant land of Minnesota, home of…”

“10,000 lakes!” Alexander came bounding up, his phone safely stowed.

“How on earth do you know that?” John asked incredulously.

“We were driving next to a Minnesota car for like 2 hours yesterday. It was on the license. I can’t help my natural observational skills.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“You’re just annoyed that I’ve deduced everything there is to know about you,” Alexander teased.

“Yeah right,” John said a little half-heartedly. Eliza couldn’t help reading something into it. She wished that Angelica hadn’t said anything at all. Now she was paranoid. But she knew her sister would have told her if it was any of Eliza’s business. She needed to relax and enjoy herself. Maybe Ange was right. She just needed to have fun. 

Actually, they all did. Something that had nothing to do with relationships, with secrets, with their pasts or their futures. Focus on someone else’s story for a while. That was when Eliza thought of it. She took a deep breath and said, “Everyone get in the car. We’re doing a song guessing tournament, starting now. 

A chorus of whoops followed this statement, and Eliza let out the breath in relief. She could never predict what would work and what wouldn’t.

“Eliza, you are a genius,” Mulligan said as they all piled in. “We should use my iPod.”

“You still have an iPod? You’re such a dad,” John laughed.

“It has more than ten thousand songs on it. We’re using it,” Mulligan said. Alexander whistled.

And so it began. What started with somewhat orderly rules soon devolved into a combination karaoke and competitive musical roast fest.

“That’s Kendrick Lamar, Alright!”

“Cold, Cold Heart by Hank Williams,”

“Lou Reed, uh..”

“Nat King Cole!”

“Sober by Childish Gambino.”

“You listen to Billy Joel? I’m judging.”

The sun beat down on the van until Eliza rolled down all the windows. The strains of Mulligan’s eclectic tastes caught on the breeze. The road was wide open, and Eliza could smell wild flowers when she leaned her head just a little bit to the left. When “Oh What A Beautiful Morning” from Oklahoma! came on, the entire car dissolved into laughter.

There really was nothing better than an on-the-nose musical number to set the mood. It was, indeed, like a morning out of a story. The whole world awaited their entrance.


	8. Minnesota

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's just a phone call, but it could very well change everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at me with my updating skills. So disciplined.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy and drop me a comment.

The Mississippi River was impressive, but by the time they crossed it, Eliza’s legs were really beginning to hurt. Wisconsin had taken longer to get through than she’d expected, and it was a few hours past lunch time. She tried to discreetly stretch one leg as she shifted in the seat.

“Do you want to stop soon?” Alexander asked immediately.

Eliza tried to sigh, but it turned into a yawn instead. “Might be nice. We could get some food.”

“Ugh. I need to go for a run or something. My legs are shrinking,” Lafayette said, melodramatic as always.

“They could do with some shrinking,” Alexander said. There was some commotion in the back seat, presumably over where Lafayette’s ridiculously long legs were situated. 

“Maybe turn down the river. Could be something interesting,” Mulligan added while reaching back to remove one of Lafayette’s legs from his chair.

“Actually, can we just ditch the car for a bit and walk the river?” John suggested. “We’re all restless, and Laf’s legs are a hazard.” 

“They have always been this long. You did not complain before,” Lafayette said huffily. Everyone ignored him.

“I’m fine with that. Anyone not happy?” Eliza said. She didn’t know when it had been decided that she would always be the one to perform the group surveys, but here she was. There were no objections. 

It was easy enough to find a little parking lot off the main road a few miles down the river.

“The Mississippi River doesn’t look that impressive from here, I’ve gotta say,” John said as they picked their way down a footpath, skirting muddy patches and plastic water bottles. Eliza wished she was wearing sturdier shoes. These flats just weren’t cutting it.

“It goes all the way to Louisiana, though, uninterrupted,” Alexander said. “That’s pretty crazy. How many kids do you think took their little rafts on this river and thought they were going to sail to the ocean? And they could, too, if they stuck with it long enough. Amazing.” He had to pause to take a breath. Eliza could listen to him wax poetic all day. Mulligan just laughed.

“Fucking disgusting river ride if you ask me.” 

The further they walked, the more Alexander and John pulled ahead. The two of them were discussing the nitty gritty of health care reform, and Eliza quickly lost interest. If it had been Angelica here, she would have been right up with them talking their ears off. Eliza fell back to talk to Lafayette instead. Mulligan was a little behind them, pausing every couple of minutes to take artsy pictures of the water. He had apparently gotten over its dirtiness.

“You are very good for _le petit lion_. You know that, right?” Lafayette said, out of the blue. None of the guys seemed to know the proper lead up to a serious conversation. Eliza took a second to catch up.

“Me? I’m good for him?”

“Well, it certainly is not any of us. You remind him to slow down. Just a little, I think. He has a tendency to, uh, bounce of the walls otherwise. He is too smart for his own good.” There were times when it was obvious that Lafayette was the youngest of their little group. He played up his brattiness and snobbery to the point that Eliza sometimes forgot that it was mostly an act. She remembered now.

“Thank you, Laf. I don’t know if that’s true, but…I guess it doesn’t matter. We’ll be going our separate ways in a week or so anyway. This whole thing has just been a side adventure.” She said it, and she knew it was true, but she didn’t really believe herself. Something about this trip felt eternal. How else could she get to know these strange guys so quickly? Why would she care so much about each of them, feel so strongly? She couldn’t imagine the details of a future in which they kept in touch, but she held it in her heart. Even if she never saw any of them again, she knew that she would never be the same.

“Things will be different,” Lafayette said, echoing her thoughts. He paused, clearly thinking about his next words. “You know, once I read a poem that said that none of us can ever go home. I was young and missing France and I did not understand, but now I do. It is not that we cannot return to our homes. It is that the ‘us’ who returns will not be the person who left. Even if the home does not change. Like Alexander and this river. You cannot sail all the way to the ocean because a different you will arrive than who left. It is that way with us, I think.” 

There really wasn’t anything to say to that.

***

“Pinch me, John, for I do not believe my eyes.” Alexander stood staring at the massive structure in front of them. “Is that ALL a toy store?”

“Looks like it,” John said. The words LARK TOYS were emblazoned on the front of what looked like a large, strangely shaped barn in huge, colourful letters. 

“You are all children,” Lafayette said because at this point he was expected to be grumpy about that sort of thing. 

“Do I see a sign for saltwater taffy?” Mulligan was grinning ear to ear. “My mom’s boss used to give those to her when I was a kid. Best thing ever when she’d come home from work with a pocketful of them.”

 

“Ooh, look. A carousel!” Eliza didn’t quite squeal. She and her sisters used to spend all their tokens riding carousels when they were little, at least until Angelica decided she was too old for them and started riding rollercoasters that made Eliza’s head spin. 

There was no group vote about whether or not to go inside. The five of them just surged forwards as one. Between this and the Hershey factory, Eliza was pretty sure she was having more of a childhood in the last week than she’d had since she was about eight. Even college had been a lot more late nights in the library than innocent nostalgia time. And this toy store certainly was a nostalgia trip. The whole place, whose layout even from the inside Eliza couldn’t quite figure out, stretched for rooms and rooms. The toys and memorabilia were piled on top of each other, not exactly cluttered but certainly not precisely organised. Magnet games next to fake cigarettes next to Big League Chew. Eliza was happy to see that although there were some brand new toys, American Girl dolls and such, most of the stuff dated back at least to the 1970s. 

“Oh, wow, look at this original cabbage patch girl!” Eliza whispered gleefully, not sure why she was keeping her voice down.

“Cool. Still the weirdest brand name, though,” John said, answering her call to come and look. “You should check out all the gag gifts. These fake poops are amazing.” 

“This cigarette so crazy real!” Alexander was holding up a very realistic looking cigarette for Eliza and John to see.

“You are holding that wrong,” Lafayette mock sniffed. “Allow the frenchman to educate you.”

“Way to play into national stereotypes, Laf,” Mulligan said. “Also I see your realistic cigarette and raise you an edible cigarette! In both candy and bubblegum varieties.”

“No way!”

“I love the packaging.”

“Can we take a second to appreciate just how many different kinds of taffy there are over here?”

“Oh my God, I—“

Ring. Ring.

All of them looked around for a second, trying to trace the source of the default iPhone ringtone. Then, John fished through his pockets.

“Think that’s me. Hello? This is John. Oh.” The smile dropped off of his face so quickly that it was almost comical. “Oh, hi.” He made a leaving gesture at all of them, his face very pale. Then he hurried towards the exit, the phone pressed nearly painfully against his ear. No one followed.

There was a long silence.

“I hope everything is all right,” Lafayette said at last. He didn’t sound hopeful. Eliza wasn’t either. John’s tone of voice had promised nothing good. She could hear her pulse in her ears.

“He’ll ask us if he needs help,” Mulligan said confidently.

But Mulligan was wrong. When John returned to them after a solid fifteen minutes, his face was grim and set.

He brushed off their concerns with a curt “everything’s fine. It was nothing,” that absolutely no one believed. They didn’t linger in the toy store for very long after that. Not even Lafayette was willing to come up with some ridiculousness to break the mood. Conversation on the long walk back to the car was half-hearted, and Eliza found herself once again dreading the prospect of being confined to a small space with the four of them.

***

They only managed to stay on the road for a couple hours after that before Eliza called a halt. It was still early evening, but this last week had been the most driving she had done probably in her entire life. It was just about all she could do to order a cookie dough blizzard and fries at the local Dairy Queen before heading to a motel.

They had ended up in some small, western Minnesota town. Eliza had missed the road sign on the way in that would have told her its name. 

“It freaks me out when they do that tip the blizzard over thing,” Mulligan complained.

Alexander sniggered at him. “You really need to take a few more risks in life, Mulligan.”

“I like my risks to be calculated and not involve ice cream.”

“I support ice cream safety,” Lafayette chipped in. The three of them kept up a light stream of banter to the motel. Eliza and John were quiet, Eliza tired and John, well, he wouldn’t say. 

By the time they checked, Eliza was only thinking about being able to stretch out full length on a real mattress.

Of course, she would have been lying if she said she wasn’t curious about what was going on with John. He was her friend, after all. But that didn’t mean that she ever intended to spy on him. 

She was just looking for a place to throw out her blizzard cup. For some reason, the staff had forgotten to put a trash can in her room. So Eliza wandered out into the dingy hallway looking for one of the bigger garbages. She turned towards the flickering vending machine, reasoning that if there was a public trash nearby, it was probably going to be there. 

She was nearly at the vending machine when she heard voices. She froze.

“Oh, so you’re the only one who gets to have secrets then?” It was unmistakably John. And Eliza knew before he opened his mouth who the other person would be.

“What secrets have I ever kept from you?” Alexander whisper-shouted. John laughed unkindly.

“Are you fucking kidding me? You haven’t told me a single thing about your life before grad school. I don’t even know where the fuck you did your undergrad—“

“I didn’t.”

“—And then you…wait, what?”

“I didn’t. I didn’t go to undergrad. I was living in Puerto Rico, and I couldn’t—my cousin—it wasn’t an option. I took some online classes and a bunch of tests and this church vouched for me. Columbia wanted to try this new program. It’s how they look good to get more charitable donations. Anyway, that’s how I got there. It really isn’t that interesting.”

Eliza needed to leave. There was no way that either one of them would be okay with her hearing this conversation. God, she wasn’t okay with it. But if she moved now, she was certain that Alexander, with his creepy sixth sense, would know that she was there. She had already heard too much to be innocent. She stayed still and sent up a quick prayer for forgiveness.

“Oh, stop being humble. It doesn’t suit you. All I’m saying is I don’t ask about every fucking thing you do. I don’t ask why you look at wait staff like you’ve never seen one before or why you get so defensive every time anyone asks about where you grew up. Or how you’re fluent in French and Spanish. And don’t say it’s being from New York. Look, I don’t care about any of that. I’m just saying get the fuck out of my business, you goddammed hypocrite.”

“Jesus, John. I never knew you were so observant. Nice to know you’ve been monitoring me this whole time. So what are you going to read in to me kindly telling you to go fuck yourself?”

Neither of their voices had ever gone much above a whisper, but they spit venom with every word. Eliza moved just in time, slipping around another corner just as Alexander rounded the first one. She caught just a glimpse of his face before he passed, pale and set. His eyes were burning. A few seconds later John followed, fists clenched hard.

“I’m going for a walk. Don’t wait up,” John said through clenched teeth. Eliza let them both pass in silence. She waited five minutes, then ten, frozen to her spot on the ugly motel carpeting. Eventually, she unstuck them and padded guiltily back to her own room.

She was through the door and on her bed before she realised she was still carrying the empty blizzard cup.


	9. South Dakota

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alexander is awful in several different ways, John's secret is revealed, and Eliza is caught in the crosshairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a big one guys. Hope you're ready for the angst. Trigger warning at the end to avoid spoilers. Have fun!

“So do you want to see Mount Rushmore?” The corn stretching in front of them was making Eliza’s eyes blur. 

“Stone carvings of a bunch of old white dudes? Uh, not really.” Mulligan stretched languidly in the seat next to her. Eliza had decided that Mulligan was her favourite co-pilot. 

“I would like to see the Badlands,” Lafayette piped up from the back. “We could go camping!”

“Have you ever even been camping, Laf?” Mulligan asked skeptically.

“We were camping in Wisconsin.”

“We were sleeping in a car. There’s a difference.”

“Fine, then. No. I am trying to broaden my horizons. What do you say, Eliza?”

Eliza did not like camping. Her dad had taken the Schuyler sisters to the woods in upstate New York a few times as children, and Eliza mostly remembered being cold at night and itching her mosquito bite covered legs. For some reason, bugs seemed specifically attracted to her. Angelica used to tease her by telling her it was because she was so sweet. 

“Sure. Whatever you want.” 

Mulligan gave her a look. “Really? You want to camp?”

“Of course. New experiences. It’ll be fun.” She should have said no. Why did shy lie about these things? Did she really think her friends would stop liking her if she said no? She didn’t think she was that insecure. “Alexander? John? What do you think?”

“What?” Alexander asked. He sounded like he was waking up from a trance.

“Camping, _petit lion_ , camping.” 

“Yeah, whatever. In the Badlands? Might be kind of cool. Do we have any supplies?” 

“What do you think we need?”

Alexander started listing off items. It was easy to forget how practical he could be. Eliza always thought of Alexander as a dreamer, but there was more to it than that. They spent the next hour planning, and it turned into a pleasant conversation, talking about cheap tent options and listening to Alexander list off rental listings on google, with occasional sidebars for bizarre e-bay products. He got so invested in the project that Eliza started to wonder if he was using this idea as an distraction after the fight with John, but that really wasn’t any of her business. 

Over the next hour, she even convinced herself that camping might be something that she would enjoy. 

They stopped for lunch at a place called Junie’s Diner. If Eliza never saw another burger in her life, it would be too soon, so she ordered a caesar salad to the endless amusement of the boys. Or at least Mulligan and Lafayette. John was quiet and twitchy, and Alexander was determinately staring at the waitresses. 

Eliza was pretty sure he was doing it to antagonise John, but it was getting on her nerves too. She just really didn’t want to get into that conversation at the moment. 

“It’ll be good to be out in the open tonight. I’m getting a little sick of cars and tiny motel rooms,” Mulligan said.

“Like everything about America, the road trip is overrated,” Lafayette declared. Everyone else rolled their eyes.

“Do any of you young men need anything else?” The waitress, Carrie by her name tag, had been giving Eliza strange looks all meal. Eliza thought that was fair, since their travel arrangements were so non-traditional, but it was a little irritating that she was now just leaving Eliza out of the conversation completely. She thought she knew why as the waitress’ attention focused, laser-like on Alexander, who was, of course, doing something vaguely obscene with the straw of his milkshake. Eliza was becoming more and more certain that straws existed purely for his benefit. 

“Oh, I don’t know. Any suggestions?” Alexander said, faux innocent. Eliza was trying desperately not to look at either Alexander or John without being too obvious about it.

“Well, honey, if you need anything else, you’ll have to ask my colleague Jen. My shift is ending right now.” For a second, Eliza thought it might be her imagination that Carrie lingered on that last phrase.

“Is it now?” Alexander asked, just the slightest hint of a smile playing at the corners of his lips. “Lucky you.”

“Lucky me. You boys have a good trip now.” Eliza told herself she was imagining the wink. This did not happen to real people. They were at a midwestern diner and Alexander and the waitress were hitting on each other. It was just too cliche. Then again, this was Alexander, and normal human rules of life just did not seem to apply to him. 

She walked away. There were a few seconds of awkward silence, and then Alexander stood up. “Bathroom,” he said, profoundly unconvincingly, and followed the waitress. The silence grew absolutely solid with tension. 

Then John stood up without a word and left the diner. He had barely touched his grilled cheese.

“That was a deeply shitty thing to do,” Mulligan said into the emptiness that followed.

Eliza felt sick. “We’re not going to talk about it. Not behind their backs.”

Lafayette sprawled dramatically back in his seat. “ _Cherie_ , how are such a good person?”

Lafayette had no idea. If he could be inside her head, if he could feel the churning, sick mixture of emotion in her gut. If he knew the truth of what Eliza felt, he would never have said that.

But he couldn’t, and only God knew the truth of Eliza Schuyler. And maybe Angelica. 

They finished their meal in silence.

***

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Eliza told Alexander. They had made it to the campsite after the most excruciating two hours in a car of Eliza’s life. John was attacking the tent poles with near homicidal energy, and Mulligan had started playing with fire. Eliza was pretty sure that Lafayette had intentionally left her alone with Alexander. She was the peacemaker, as always. Destined to fulfil her role.

“Done what?” He asked lightly, his eyes dangerous.

“Alexander.” She wasn’t going to play this game.

“I know. I did it anyway.” 

“You could apologise.”

“That isn’t the problem.”

Eliza drew in a breath, unable to keep it to herself any longer. “I heard you fighting, Alexander.” Once it was out, she plowed on. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, but I did it. I can’t take it back. I understand why you’re angry.” He was staring at her, and she couldn’t read his expression well enough to tell whether he was hurt or not. The walls behind his eyes were well and truly in place.

“You understand everyone.” He said it dismissively, intending to make her angry. She wouldn’t take the bait.

“No, but I try. I’m just asking you to apologise. I think he’ll forgive you.” 

Alexander grimaced. “Of course he’ll forgive me.” Eliza winced at his arrogance. Alexander saw her reaction. “I never said that he should,” he added, much more quietly.

Eliza stared at him.

Still quietly, Alexander said, “But that’s not the real question. The real question is: do you, Eliza, really want him to take me back?”

The blow landed with surgical precision. Eliza worked her mouth silently for a few seconds, but no words would come out. He was watching her with his wide brown eyes unreadable. He wasn’t gloating, but her wasn’t going to make it easy. Eventually, she made it to her feet, legs shaking.

“I’m trying to help you,” was all she got out before fleeing back to the campsite.

When she arrived, Mulligan immediately saw that something was wrong. Eliza had avoided crying, but only just. “Do you want me to try to talk to him?” He asked quietly, correctly guessing the source of her pain.

“He’s just going to bite your head off too. No, thanks. Leave him alone. Leave them both alone. Tomorrow, I—I don’t know.” She wasn’t going to cry.  
“It’s not your responsibility to fix everything, you know,” Mulligan said sympathetically.

“I know,” she lied. 

They had bought marshmallows and other camping extras, but none of them felt much like spending time with each other just then. There was an awkward moment when they divided up the two tents for sleeping, but it ended with Eliza, Lafayette and John in one tent and Alexander and Mulligan in the other. No one was very happy about it. 

When she finally curled up for the night, it might have been her mood that made the ground feel so hard, but it certainly wasn’t helping anything. She could hear the mosquitoes buzzing just outside their tent, ready to take a bite out of her. At least until Lafayette started snoring. The noise bore into her eardrums. One of the blessings of growing up in a house with so many women was that she rarely had to deal with snoring. Uncomfortable and heartsick, she rolled over to do her nightly prayer.

_Dear Lord. Thank you for surrounding me with such brilliant people and giving me these amazing opportunities. Please give me the strength and sight to help my friends and be the best person I can be. Guide me away from temptation. And…protect Alexander from himself. Please. Amen._

She opened her eyes. The tent was surprisingly bright, moonlight filtering in through the partially open hatch. It was glinting a little eerily off of John’s dark eyes as he stared right at her. She hadn’t been speaking aloud, but sometimes her lips moved when she prayed. John was still looking at her, unperturbed by Lafayette snoring between them.

Silently, without so much as raising an eyebrow, both of them got up. The night air was refreshing on Eliza’s face, the wind playing through the braid she always wore when she slept. John was a few seconds behind her. They walked a few yards away, then a little farther. Sound carried in the vast emptiness that surrounded them. Eliza sat down on a large rock, just starting to cool after the day’s heat, and John followed her lead.

“Trouble sleeping?” Eliza asked when they were settled.

“I’ve never slept very much.” John’s outline shrugged in the darkness. 

“When I was younger, I slept really well. My sister used to tease me about how I was always asleep before she could tell me anything after lights out.” Their childhood bedroom in New York felt very far away from this dark wasteland.

“Until you met us,” he said it like he was joking, but Eliza didn’t buy it.

“No. Not that.”

There were a few minutes of silence, and then John spoke again.

“I don’t want to sleep. I want every stolen second to last forever.” Eliza could have asked what he meant, what he thought was stolen, but she already knew. She felt it too, that this last week was somehow separate from the real world, an interlude between acts. Between college and life. Between friends and something else. Between one Eliza and another.

“I know. There will be others, though.” 

John looked at her for a second, as if he was wondering what she was referring to. She wasn’t sure either. Wasn’t sure if it was even true. 

“Not like this,” he said at last.

And she couldn’t argue with that. They sat there together on a cold rock in the middle of the Badlands until the sun rose. It was the most beautiful sunrise Eliza had ever seen.

***

Eliza woke to the feeling of John’s shoulder disappearing from underneath her head. She jerked up into a sitting position. Her back ached, and she didn’t remember falling asleep. She turned groggily to John to ask him why he was moving, but then she saw Alexander walking towards them. John stood up abruptly and made an ungraceful exit. Eliza sat and waited, thinking she really wasn’t yet awake enough to deal with Alexander, but too curious as to what he would have to say for himself to run away.

“You look tired,” he said as he approached, ignoring John completely. It was an uncharacteristically obvious statement.

“So do you.” It was true. There were deep bags under Alexander’s eyes. She and John hadn’t been the only ones awake last night. If she had been a more spiteful person than she was, she might have been glad. Instead, she just felt exhausted. 

“I thought about what you said last night.” And what about what you said, she wanted to ask, but didn’t. He sat down next to her, taking John’s place. “You were right. I’m—“

Ring. Ring.

They both froze, looking down in unison at the iPhone vibrating on the rock between them. John’s phone. It must have slipped out of his pocket at some point during the night. The screen was lit up, broadcasting the name “Martha.”

Alexander met her eyes, and then he reached out for the phone.

“No! Alexander—“ She reached out too, but she was too late. Alexander had picked it up.

“John can’t get to the phone right now. Can I take a message for him?” Eliza’s heart dropped with a sense of foreboding. Alexander was smiling into the phone, voice dripping charm.

“I’m a friend of his. May I ask who you are?”

There was a pause, and the smile dropped right off of Alexander’s face. When he spoke again, he was nearly stuttering. 

“Excuse me? No, I just—never mind. I’m sure he’ll call you. Yeah. Right. I will. Bye.” Alexander hung up very slowly, setting the phone back down on the rock with exquisite care and not a little fear.

“What’s going on?” Eliza’s heart was pounding now. She did not like the look on Alexander’s face one bit.

“I need to talk to John,” he said, weirdly flat.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea right now? Who was that? Come on, Alexander, talk to me. Let me in.” 

But he was already standing up. Eliza hurried to follow, her legs protesting loudly as she stumbled after him. He was holding John’s phone white-knuckled in one hand. This was not going to end well. 

John was talking quietly to Lafayette back by the car. He turned when he heard Alexander and Eliza approach. She watching him take in Alexander’s expression, and physically take a step back. Lafayette tensed, then glanced to Eliza. She shrugged one shoulder. She had no idea what was happening either.

Part of her thought that Alexander would want to confront John in private, but there wasn’t exactly a whole lot of that to be found out in the desert, and anyway, he didn’t really seem to care. 

Alexander held the phone out in front of him as though it might be a bomb. John didn’t move, waiting. “Martha called.”

John’s eyes widened. “Alexander—“

“Oh, so you haven’t forgotten all about her. Martha, your fiancée.”

Eliza drew in a sharp breath. That was impossible. It was ridiculous. Eliza knew John, and he wouldn’t do something like that. But…they had only met a week ago. She didn’t know him at all. He wasn’t denying it. 

“Look, Alexander, it’s not like—“

“Not like you have a secret fiancée who you’ve just abandoned to go gallivanting off with an old friend, and pretend that there was nothing going on. You let me think—you said—you’re such a liar!” 

John’s face was nearly grey, but now he was angry too. “I’m the liar? I don’t think anyone here is going to be able to paint me as the cheater, Alexander.”

“I didn’t lie! I didn’t use some poor woman, or whatever it is you’re doing. I mean, how can you explain that? She didn’t tell me why she was calling, but it sure as hell wasn’t to wish you safe travels.”

“You have no idea what’s going on!” John shouted.

Alexander opened his mouth to reply, but Mulligan got there first, his deep voice slicing easily through the yelling, radiating calm.

“Then why don’t you explain, John. We want to hear your side.” His voice was measured and painstakingly neutral. Eliza had never been more grateful for it. 

“He’s just going to twist my words to fit that world in his head,” John spat.

Alexander laughed horribly.

“John, please,” Lafayette said, no silly french phrases thrown in this time.

“Fine. Fuck, okay. I was going to tell—no, fuck it. I wasn’t going to say something. But here it is. I had this thing with this woman—Martha—in college, and I was just—it was stupid. We were both being stupid. She got pregnant. She was going to have an abortion. It sucked. And then, just when that was settled, her dad tried to stop her getting rid of the baby. When she refused, he told—he went to my father and threatened to leak the paternity. Conservative Senator’s Son’s Girlfriend Gets Abortion. Dad could just see the headlines, I’m sure. He wasn’t in time to actually stop Martha getting it done, thank fuck, but now they’re ganging up on us to try and make us get married. Martha doesn’t want it either, but, well, it’s hard for her. Her mom stopped talking to her. She was probably calling to try to get me to meet with my father to hash it out which she wouldn’t be doing if she realised just how likely that sort of meeting is to end in bloodshed. So, yeah, that’s the story.”

The anger bled out of his voice the longer he talked. By the time he stopped, he just sounded empty and tired. There was silence for a very long moment. No one moved. 

“I’m so sorry,” Eliza said when it appeared that no one else would. The atmosphere relaxed for a fraction of a second. And then:

“What would you have done? If she hadn’t gotten the abortion?” Alexander’s voice sounded like sandpaper.

“I don’t know.” John said hollowly, truthfully.

Alexander nodded. “We need to pack everything up.”

“I can…go. Get a plane. Go back East. Or, I don’t know. Away.”

Alexander just stared at him. “We’re in South Dakota. Help pack the car.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: discussion of abortion


	10. Wyoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trip is nearly over, but they have 24 hours in paradise. Eliza makes a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah you didn't expect me to keep updating regularly, did you? At least this is a long and eventful chapter. As a side note, if you think this story is sort of tonally all over the place, trust me, so do I. Hope you enjoy it anyway!

The road was endless. It stretched out in front of them until the horizon swallowed it, unbroken by any kind of geography. Flat ground. Occasionally, flat billboards. Even the sky looked flat, and much bigger than it did Upstate. After a while, Eliza found herself trying to guess the models of the cars they passed, a pastime she had never been remotely interested in before. To be honest, it wasn’t even interesting now. Just better than any of the other thoughts that were crowding in on her.

The rest of the car was silent except for the clacking of Alexander’s laptop keys. He had started writing moments after they had gotten in the car, and had yet to look up in the five and a half hours since. When Eliza risked a glance in the mirror, she thought he looked a little green. It was not a good look, paired as it was with the raccoon-like shadows under his eyes. John was in the passenger’s seat, asleep — or faking it. 

Had it really only been a few days ago that the five of them had been joking and singing together? Arguing about state names and fast food chains? Ridiculous, unimportant, precious arguments. It had been magical until the real world rang to ruin their adventure. 

To her extreme embarrassment, Eliza realised that there were tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She swallowed hard and held them back. So melodramatic. But she was exhausted. That was part of the problem. She blinked her eyes open wide and tried to focus on the road. If she could just focus, take control of the car, guide them through, it would be all right.

It would be all right. It would be all right.

Alexander’s keys click clacked in time with her thoughts. Just keep driving. Just keep driving. Peggy had been obsessed with that movie when she was little.

“Eliza?”

She jumped, realising that she had been—if not drifting off— certainly zoning out. She turned her focus back to the road before she answered Mulligan. “Sorry. I might need to stop for a coffee.” 

He leaned over the seats to get closer to her. “I can take a turn if you want. You look exhausted, Eliza. You’ve been driving like crazy.”

“What? But—” She struggled to come up with a suitable protest, but her brain was like molasses.

“I do know how to drive. And we’re in Wyoming. I think I can handle it. Better than you can if you start to fall asleep, anyway.” His deep, calming, voice was so eminently reasonable.

The idea of closing her eyes for a few minutes, anything other than driving, was incredibly tempting. “I just need some coffee,” she said instead.

“ _Chère Eliza_ , Mulligan is being too kind. Take him up on it,” Lafayette added from behind the passenger’s seat.

“It’s not like I’m bending over backwards,” Mulligan protested. “She didn’t sign up to be our chauffeur. What do you say? Switch with me?”

The road was starting to waver a little strangely. Lafayette hissed “ _chauffeuse_ ” under his breath. She really should have tried harder to sleep last night. But who was she kidding? She didn’t have either of her sisters’ abilities to power through on coffee and willpower alone. She needed rest. 

Eliza rubbed one hand across her face. “All right. Thank you so much, Mulligan. I’ll just find the next turn-off. We need gas anyway,” she said. As soon as the words came out, she got a little worried that there wouldn’t be another turn off for fifty miles, but she ended up finding one in about ten.

“What’s going on?” Alexander asked fuzzily as she pulled into the Shell. 

“Good Sir Mulligan is taking over the chariot from Eliza. And we are getting gas,” Lafayette summarised. 

“K. Bathroom.” Alexander responded through suddenly clenched teeth. Eliza looked back. His eyes looked glassy and he was very definitely green now. 

“Go!” Lafayette said, and Alexander climbed gracelessly over him and stumbled into the station, laptop abandoned on the floor of the car. Eliza followed more slowly, her legs cramping but her head clearer in the fresh air. It was grey out and a damp, but it felt amazing on exhaustion-numbed face. 

Less amazing were the sounds of retching coming from the single stall bathroom that Eliza was waiting outside of. A few minutes later, a tousled and pale Alexander emerged. He smiled sheepishly at her.

“Sorry about that. Promise I cleaned up.”

Eliza resisted the urge to step forward and brush the hair out of his eyes. That would be totally unhelpful, and she was still angry with him. “Are you okay?” was what she settled for.

“I’m fine. Just carsick.” She wondered if that was the whole truth. He went from heart on his sleeve to nearly unreadable with dizzying speed.

“Did you ever consider not writing in the car until you vomited?”

He bared his teeth at her. “Why would I do a thing like that?” 

“I don’t know. Maybe because it’s a childish and unproductive way to do penance,” she snapped.

Alexander stared at her, and she couldn’t blame him. She hadn’t known she would say that either. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, and actually sounded sincere. Eliza usually thought her willingness to forgive was a virtue, but this time she tried to hold back. Alexander had far too much power over her already. She was teetering on an edge that felt inexplicably important.

“I’m not the one you should be apologising to,” she said sharply, but he didn’t take the bait.

“Well someone should be. If not me, who else? You look awful, Eliza.” He was boring into her with the intensity of his eyes.

“But—“ Again, she was lost for words. Alexander took a step forward until Eliza could see the sweat glittering on his high forehead. Slowly, almost shyly, he tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. His hand was trembling slightly.

“Take a break, Eliza,” he said softly. It was so blatantly hypocritical that Eliza thought she would start laughing. Instead, she had to flee into the bathroom to stop him from seeing her cry.

A few minutes later, Eliza emerged and bought a coffee for the car. Anything to dispel the haze that was making her stomach churn and her brain go dull. It felt good to curl her legs under her in the back seat, and she tried to ignore the swooping sensation in her gut that made her feel like she was falling. She was pathetically grateful that she wasn’t driving, even if she couldn’t help herself from watching Mulligan carefully.

Alexander, predictably, pulled his laptop back out the moment they were on the road again. Eliza was a little annoyed, but in the scheme of his self-destructive tendencies, she had to admit that this was one of the minor ones. And it wasn’t like he could have a serious conversation with anyone in the car like this. But she had been right about the penance. Eliza didn’t want to look at his laptop screen because that was rude, so she leaned back against the window.

“What are you writing?” She asked, not wanting to sleep and at the same time wanting to drag their conversations away from the apocalyptic. She was sick of talking in code. It might suit Alexander, but Eliza didn’t like it one bit. 

“Abortion op-ed.”

“I’m assuming you’re Pro Life.” He paused, and took in a quick breath. “Oh, come on. I’m kidding, Alexander. I occasionally try to be funny too. Not as well as you.”

“Oh. No, I’m being stupid. Sorry. Actually, do you mind? I need to finish this.” Eliza wondered just how long this op-ed could be, to take more than six hours to write. The purr of the engine was thrumming through the cool window and into her head. She finished her coffee and stuck it in the side cupholder, holding back a yawn. She could see the back of John’s curly head from here. She wondered what he was feeling. Wished she could comfort him about the awful situation he had let them in on. Wished that her own feelings on the subject weren’t so murky. 

A little bit of sun burst through the clouds, steadily warming her face. The flyaway hairs around John’s face caught the light, almost like a halo. It was pretty, but it reminded her of something, something that she couldn’t quite…

***

There was a hard weight pressing on her head when Eliza woke. She tried to figure out what it might be without opening her eyes, but she couldn’t. Groaning slightly, she shifted a little to try to dislodge it, wondering how long she’d been asleep. It felt like days.

“Oh. Oops,” Abruptly, the weight disappeared. Eliza blinked her eyes open to see Alexander moving his laptop away. She was looking up at him. Strange. 

The moment that her lagging brain realised that she had been sleeping with her head in Alexander Hamilton’s lap, she jerked upright. 

“Whoa. Easy. I don’t bite.” The quirk of his lips hinted to a naughty end to a sentence. Abstractly, Eliza wondered if he even knew he was flirting. It seemed instinctual, but surely this was such an obviously terrible time. Not that it flustered her any less, of course. 

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to—how long was I asleep?” 

“Just about two hours,” came Mulligan’s reassuring voice.

“Mulligan has not yet managed to crash the car,” Lafayette added, somewhat less reassuringly. 

“Oh. Good.” Eliza still felt wrecked. She must look it too. Self-consciously, she tried to flatten her hair. Alexander, of course, was watching.

“Sorry for writing on your head. I didn’t want to wake you up,” he said.

“What?” She asked, before her brain caught up. The weight on her head had been a laptop. Alexander had been typing on top of her. The move was so quintessentially him that she couldn’t help a laugh.

“God forbid the world be deprived of the great Alexander Hamilton’s words for a few hours.” 

Mulligan and Lafayette laughed then too. Alexander huffed. “Well the world is being fucking deprived. I haven’t had cell service an hour. It’s like no one in Wyoming has a cell phone.”

“Or there’s just no one in Wyoming,” Mulligan pointed out. 

“Who are you trying to call?” Eliza asked, thinking of all the times he had retreated from them to check his phone. Yesterday, even, she might have been worried about rocking the boat. By this point, the boat was already well-rocked. 

“No one in particular,” Alexander said, too glib. There was a beat where everyone in the car wondered if someone else was willing to call him on it.

“Remember that thing I said about you being a fucking hypocrite?” John had finally stopped pretending to be asleep. He didn’t sound aggressive exactly, but he wasn’t joking either. Eliza waited for Alexander to verbally demolish him. He didn’t. There was short pause, and then Alexander told them the truth. 

“It’s my dad. He’s in LA. I wanted to let him know I was going to be out there.” It was such a banal explanation, particularly in light of John’s tragic revelation, that it took a second for Eliza to process it. 

“He’ll be happy to see you anyway,” Mulligan said. “Don’t worry about it.”

Alexander laughed that laugh of his that Eliza liked the least. “He hasn’t seen me in fifteen years. Last I heard he was in LA. I thought he might—but it doesn’t matter, anyway. We’re here to have fun.” The turnaround was so insincere that it made Eliza’s skin crawl. 

“Maybe he’s not getting your messages,” Eliza tried.

“It’s his voicemail. He’s getting them.” Silence.

“That sucks,” John conceded. Eliza was grateful for the gesture, even if it made Alexander shift next to her. He shook it off and a moment later he was bright again, talking as quickly as he ever did.

“Hey, no service does have its perks though. We’re basically off the grid. I can’t expect to hear from my dad, John doesn’t have to figure shit out with his fiance—“ Alexander very nearly did not trip over the word, “—and no one in the world knows where any of us are!”

“We’ve got to be in Nevada tomorrow or I’m not going to make it to my conference.” Mulligan reminded him. It was so easy to forget that there was at least something of a reason for what they were doing. Less than two weeks since this whole thing had started. Time had never felt so meaningless to Eliza. Regardless, the reminder didn’t slow Alexander. If anything, the slight vibration she could feel coming off of his body increased.

“Even better!” he grinned. “We have 24 hours then. Very poetic. 24 hours to find proverbial paradise and provide Eliza with the perfect cap to her wild road trip with the boys. Fuck the rest of the world. What do you say?”

“Cool the alliteration,” Mulligan groused, but Eliza could tell that he liked it. Alexander really did have a disturbing level of influence on the mood of a space. It wasn’t as if the stuff with he and John had gone away, exactly, but his invitation to paradise was seductive.

“We’re nearly in Yellowstone,” Alexander said hopefully, turning his megawatt smile on Mulligan. But it was John who answered first.

“Yellowstone?” he asked, a little brighter than he’d been in the last twenty four hours. “My dad—I’ve never been before. It’s supposed to be fucking gorgeous.” There were excited murmurs of agreement from throughout the car.

“Don’t we need a permit?” Eliza had to ask, struck by the sudden need to slow down. She could feel them starting to hurdle forward again, and there was still too much wreckage from the last time they had done that. 

Her protest was too weak.

“I will work my magic on them! This sounds like an excellent idea! A day in the great outdoors and Mulligan still gets to his boring conference on time!” Lafayette added his own boundless enthusiasm to the cause, and they were lost. 

“Eliza? What do you think?” Mulligan, of course, was the one considerate enough to ask.

“Well if you boys want to go find me a paradise, I’m not complaining. It sounds amazing.” It sounded dangerous. It sounded like Eliza should really just be catching up on sleep. It sounded like they were still trying to outrun themselves. Then again, it was only one night, one night out of a crazy two week trip that had changed her more profoundly than four years of college. There simply wasn’t that much more that could happen.

In retrospect, Eliza recognised that her logic was deeply flawed.

***

As expected, Lafayette worked his magic when it came to the camping permit. It was fascinating to watch, the way he shifted from capricious and childish to fully polished diplomacy in a matter of seconds. Eliza watched the ranger’s distrust at the arrival of a physically imposing black man melt into warmth and helpfulness under the sheer power of Lafayette’s will. She wondered how long it had taken him to get this good at changing people’s minds. She wondered what it had cost him, and then wondered when she had started thinking that way.

Anyway, it worked, because they left the wooden welcome centre behind a few minutes later. Eliza was finally permitted back behind the wheel in order to drive them into the national park proper.

The past two days could not be undone easily, but it soon became clear that Yellowstone Park was going to do its best. Huge cliffs loomed over them, dotted with pine trees that reached for an endless blue sky. Lafayette recited directions to Eliza from memory, and they wound their way ever deeper into imposingly picturesque wilderness. They passed a few other cars on the road, stacked with canoes or bulging with camping gear. Eliza couldn’t help feeling a little underprepared, and the last night of camping had certainly not gone very well. But this wasn’t the Badlands, and the deeper they got into the park, the more Eliza forgot to worry about it.

“ _Ours_!” Lafayette called at one point, and Eliza might very well have crashed the car if she’d understood him. By the time Alexander translated “bear” a few seconds later, she had gotten herself under control. And sure enough, there was a bear, lumbering through the undergrowth only a few feet from the road. It was beautiful, but Eliza couldn’t help but be relieved when they left it behind. She was sure that animal could break the window if it wanted to.  
They drove for so long that Eliza was beginning to think that Lafayette’s reliance on his memory for directions was a little over-confident when the road took a sharp left turn and plunged down into a gully. 

“Wow,” Eliza breathed, just as Lafayette announced, “ _Nous sommes arrivés._ ”

As a child, Eliza had often wondered what the Garden of Eden had looked like. She had imagined something akin to a well-manicured upstate New York back lawn. Now she realised that that image had been hopelessly domestic, and not half as wild or as beautiful as it must really have been. The clearing they found themselves in now, at the end of the dirt road, had to be paradise. 

Fully leafed trees glinted green and swayed in the light breeze. A pool of water twinkled only a few yards away, pummelled by a short waterfall that sprayed a rainbow out over the moss-covered stones. Apart from the crash of the water, the world was silent, utterly untouched. The only thing in any way marring the perfection was a small wooden sign that declared that this was Campsite #2387. 

“Twenty four hours in paradise,” Alexander said quietly. 

“Well, shall we discover what this place has in store for us?” Lafayette asked, a little louder, but still more quietly than normal. It was enough to break the spell, and they tumbled out of the car and started to unpack. 

The fog of tiredness that Eliza had been operating under all day seemed to have lifted, and soon the campsite was full of voices as they struggled once more with the tents. Eliza found herself consulting the manual with Mulligan, but she had to pause in the process of matching A and B poles just to look around, feel the refreshing breeze on her face.

“I can’t believe this. I can’t believe we’re this lucky,” she said quietly when the the pause had gone on too long just to go back to work.

Mulligan laughed a little. “I get that.” He folded up the diagram to look at her full on. “Listen. When I first moved in with Lafayette, well—it was crazy. His life, man, you have no idea. And then Alexander showed up, and he’s like that too.”

“Like what?” Eliza asked, even though she thought she already knew what he meant.

“Extreme, I guess. Just, the world is different for people like that. Like it’s not all good. Not even close. I mean the shit Lafayette told me about what his parents did. They didn’t care about him at all. And Alexander won’t even talk about his life, but I know he nearly died when he was twelve. A couple other times too.” He broke off. “I’m not trying to gossip.”

“I know.”

“It’s just—like, my life wasn’t easy. My dad lost his job after I got adopted, and mom always had to work really hard to make ends meet. But that’s like normal shit. They loved me, I grew up, whatever. I don’t know. What I’m saying is I guess it doesn’t surprise me that they would luck into a beautiful place like this. For some people, there’s a lot of ugly and a lot of beautiful in life.”

It was quite the observation. Eliza watched Alexander dip a bare foot into the edge of the pool and then pull it quickly back out again. She knew what Mulligan was saying. People like that—like Alexander— had an orbit. The world changed around them. Angelica was a little like that too. And Eliza got sucked in, time and time again. It occurred to her to wonder what would happen if she wasn’t able to pull herself back out again. Mulligan was right, the ugly and the beautiful went hand in hand. 

“Wish me luck!” Eliza’s attention was drawn up to the top of the waterfall, where John was standing on a large, slick rock, wearing nothing but his shorts. 

“Is it deep enough?” Eliza called, but she was too late. John was already plunging off the side. Eliza’s breath caught in her throat as he slammed into the water with a resounding crash.

A second later, he surfaced, hair plastered all over his smiling face. He spit out some water. “Come on then, who’s going with me?”

Lafayette went next, stripping down to boxers because he would not deign to wear a pair of shorts. The tents were abandoned, half-constructed, as they flocked to the edge of the water. Eliza slipped off her sandals and tested the water. It was surprisingly warm, especially for May.

“Eliza, are you getting in?” Alexander called from the top of the rock. All of the guys had already jumped off the edge at least once. Eliza hesitated. She didn’t have a swimsuit, and she still wasn’t one hundred percent certain how safe this was. On the other hand, every muscle in her body ached from a combination of driving and sleeping on hard ground. Some cool water sounded heavenly. And honestly, who was she not to enjoy such a beautiful place? It was only one day.

She peeled off her shirt, leaving on her bra and shorts and trying to quell the swell of self-consciousness as her pale, flat chest was revealed. Alexander whooped victoriously and beckoned her up, his eyes on her face perhaps just a bit too intentionally. 

Eliza scrambled up the side of the rocks, feeling ungainly in comparison with the men, already glittering with water. Looking at them, half-undressed, Eliza wondered briefly when Lafayette worked out, then blushed the thought away. Mulligan’s stocky muscles were much less of a surprise, as were John and Alexander’s wiry thinness. She reached the top and looked out over the waterfall. It looked a lot further down from here than it had when she was on the ground. Alexander came to stand next to her, fighting his hair back into a ponytail.

“Scared?” He teased.

“Like I’d tell you.”

“No, you definitely wouldn’t,” he said, a little more seriously. He paused. “Has anyone ever told you you’re hard to read?”

“No.” They hadn’t. Angelica and Peggy could be mysterious sometimes, but Eliza was always good and kind with everyone’s best interests at heart. That was what everyone said. 

Alexander laughed. “People are such idiots,” he said, and while she was busy falling into his bright smile, he reached out and shoved her off the edge.

“Al—“ was as far as she got before she was hurtling towards the water, unable to straighten up. She hit the water with a painful thwack before plunging down. She opened her eyes underwater. The world rushed by, blue and silent and all-consuming. She caught sight of the bottom, and her feet slowly met the rocky floor. She shot back up to the surface, coughing, her arms stinging, a laugh bubbling up.

“Alexander, you idiot! You could have hurt me!” He was still standing at the top, his laughter drowned out by the pounding waterfall, as her voice probably was. She was sure he knew what she was saying, though. Cheerfully, he flipped her off.

“I can put him in his place, Eliza,” Mulligan offered from where he was lounging on one of the lower rocks.

“I can handle it!” Eliza shouted, exhilarated. She waded to the edge, not stopping to worry about how well her makeshift swimsuit was holding up, determined to get back at Alexander. He faked fear as she stomped back up to him.

“Mercy! Mercy, sweet Eliza! Forgive a wayward soul! I was stricken by temptation, and I must say that I strayed.” He made no effort to step away from the edge or otherwise block her from what it was surely obvious that she was about to do.

Eliza marched right up to Alexander and shoved him off.

At the very last second, he twisted, not to save himself, but to grab onto her. With a yell, Eliza found herself plunging off the ledge once again, this time entwined with Alexander. The two of them crashed into the water with a resounding splash, and Eliza was immediately pulled under by the churning waterfall. For a second, she panicked, unable to move or see in the mass of white foam that surrounded them. Then she felt Alexander’s hand reaching for her own, and she grabbed on, the world slowly re-orientating around her. She came bursting up to the surface, face to face with Alexander. He was laughing, hair plastered to his face, ponytail nowhere to be found, eyes sparkling. Eliza gasped for breath, excruciatingly aware of how close they were to one another, how little they were wearing. Her knee brushed the cold skin of his stomach.

The force of the water had propelled them around the side of the waterfall, near a bank that was sheltered from the car and the rest of the pool. She kicked towards it, following Alexander’s lead. Breathlessly, she pulled herself onto a mossy, half-submerged rock. The shallow water was warmed by the sun. Alexander came sliding up right next to her, their skin touching.

“I can’t believe you managed to pull me down with you,” Eliza said.

He grinned at her. “That’s my specialty,” and she knew it was true. Eliza started to pull her legs under her, ready to carry their momentum back through the pool and jump off the ledge again. Her heart was still in her throat, her skin on fire. 

“I nearly drowned. When I was sixteen,” Alexander said abruptly, and she froze, turning to look at him. He was still smiling at her, though not as broadly. He looked so comfortable, lounging in the water. Like a guy on the cover of one the romances her mom read. The image couldn’t have been more at odds with his words. “There was a hurricane. At home. I couldn’t swim. I nearly drowned,” he said again. Eliza wasn’t getting ready to swim away anymore. Their legs were overlapping. She could see every eyelash on his face.

“But you’re not afraid of the water,” she said. Obviously. That was stupid.

But Alexander didn’t call her on it. He just shook his head, looking out at the pool. “I don’t understand that. Why people who nearly drowned don’t always make it their mission to learn to swim.” Oh. Of course he wouldn’t. She smiled a little, because the comment was so him, but she tried to explain anyway.

“Water is powerful. I don’t know—I’ve never drowned, but maybe people think water is so strong that it’s not even worth it. Why fight something that can kill you anyway?”

Alexander shook his head, now painfully sincere. “There are no battles that aren’t worth fighting.”

There was a lump in her throat. “Not everything’s a battle,” she said quietly. 

Eliza could feel every pore of hers that was touching his skin. Her heart was pounding in her throat. She waited for him to laugh at her answer. Eliza, the simple sweet one, the pacifist, the goody two shoes. She was hoping, maybe, for one of his dazzling smiles. She didn’t get it. Instead, his eyes widened just a little bit, and he opened his mouth in a soft ‘o’.

“Eliza,” he breathed, and then he kissed her.

It shouldn’t have been quite as surprising as it was. Eliza felt herself lock tight, her mind suddenly racing. She wasn’t even thinking of John, or that waitress, not in that moment. She was thinking about everything else, about the cut glass of his eyes and writing until he was carsick and every single sign that he was planning on burning himself up in a blaze of too short glory. This couldn’t be happening. Not with Alexander Hamilton. She couldn’t want this.

He pulled back.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t—Eliza. You’re right. I’m—why would you want—“ he stumbled, pupils blown wide. He was struggling to find the words, to apologise, to explain, but Eliza’s mind was clear again. She had caught her breath.

Eliza wanted this.

She reached for the back of Alexander’s neck and pulled him in close, feeling his breath hitch as it ghosted over her face. Then she sealed her lips around his and bit just slightly on the lower one. Alexander gasped, momentarily stunned. And then they were both moving at the same time, gluing themselves together, slipping on the rock, forgetting to come up for air, splashing, touching, not caring about anything else.

After some time, it dawned on Eliza that it was not possible to make out in a shallow pool for the rest of eternity. Reluctantly, she broke away. “We should get back. The others will think we’ve drowned.”

“Haven’t we?” He said absurdly, but Eliza didn’t laugh. 

“Come on. I want—this is already bad enough.” John. She was thinking about John. And the rest of them. This was going to cause trouble. She, Eliza, who was always the level-headed one, the pragmatist, was going to cause her friends trouble. She started to push herself up, but Alexander caught onto her hand.

“Wait a second. Relax. And tell me. What do you want?” He was half-submerged in the water, on his knees, holding her hand, his lips chapped from kissing her. It was not a question that anyone asked Eliza very often, and here it was, coming from him of all people. And she knew the answer. She pulled on his and he stood up, their faces nearly touching.

“You,” she said, and his lips broke into a slow smile. Not manic or manipulative, but a real smile. 

“People have no idea about you, do they? They think they know you, but they don’t, not at all.”

Eliza’s heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean?”

Alexander leaned close, his breath on her ear sending a shiver down her spine. “They have no idea how selfish you are.”

“Oh?” Because that was all she could get out.

He pulled back, talking at a normal volume now. “Sure, you’re the kindest person I’ve ever met, and you’re generous and sweet too. But you know what you want, and you’re determined to have it.”

Eliza’s mouth was very dry. “You’re so arrogant.” There should have been more heat to that but she couldn’t muster up the saliva.

“Of course, but that doesn’t make me wrong. Does it?” 

Her heart was thundering more loudly than the waterfall, and she could barely breathe. She knew who Alexander was, and she knew who she was, and she knew that in a million years this would never work, but she had forgotten just why that mattered. 

“No, you’re not wrong.”

***

“Eliza, I want to talk to you.” Eliza’s stomach dropped. John was standing by the car, looking at her expectantly. She and Alexander had eventually made their way back to the group, and while they didn’t hide what had gone on between them, they didn’t exactly broadcast it either. Eliza could tell immediately from John’s face that he had figured it out.

“Of course,” she said, and followed his lead when he opened the back door to the car and hopped in. He obviously did not want to be overheard. From Eliza’s own experience with Alexander’s oversensitive ears, she couldn’t exactly say she blamed him.

Eliza could say this for John, he didn’t exactly beat around the bush.

“He’s going to fuck you up,” he said, the moment the door was closed. Eliza opened her mouth to respond, but he cut her off before she got the chance. “And I’m not saying that because I’m jealous. Even though, yeah. But you’re my friend, and I like you, and he’s going to tear you apart. Didn’t you fucking see what happened with us? And you’re not like me, you’re…”

Eliza wondered what word he was trying not to say. Naive? Feminine? Weak? “You don’t need to lecture me, John. I can make my own decisions.”

The look on his face clearly said that he doubted this. “Look, Eliza, I know I fucked up too. That I’ve always been, well—but you saw how he reacted! Do you honestly want to get involved with a guy who revenge fucks a waitress and answers your phone when you’re not there?”

The worst part was that John definitely had a point. Put down in black and white, the situation was so clear. But it wasn’t that way, and Alexander was a whirlwind of everything that wasn’t clear-cut. And he was giving her an in to that world. “I appreciate that, John, and I’m really sorry how things ended with you two. It was horrible. And I give you full license to tell me ‘I told you so’ if that ever becomes necessary, but you’re right, I’m not you and Alexander. I haven’t spent my life making rash decisions and then running away from them. This is my choice, and I’d like you to respect that.”

Eliza opened the door and got out of the car, feeling shaky. She wasn’t angry with John, not really, but she wasn’t going to listen to him either. She breathed in the thick scents of the woods once more. This was an adventure, and she planned to make her own path. For the first time in her life, the future was a hazy and hazardous place, and the feeling could not have been more liberating.

She noticed Alexander watching her anxiously from the fire pit, and she smiled at him. He visibly relaxed.

***

Sometime later, they all sat around the fire, fully dried off and wearing fresh clothes. Eliza was sitting next to Alexander, but she was determined not to touch him too much. PDA was awkward at the best of times, and this was not, by any stretch of the imagination, the best of times. This was made more difficult by the fact that Alexander was a naturally expressive and tactile person. Every time he shifted on his rock or gesticulated wildly enough to touch Eliza, she felt a little thrill, made even sweeter by the fact that she was no longer trying to suppress the feeling.

“Have you heard the story of the patron saint of Paris, Saint Denis?” Lafayette asked as they passed around marshmallow roasting sticks. He hardly waited for a response before launching into his story. “So this is the story. Denis was supposed to be executed. I forget why.”

“It’s France. They execute everyone,” Mulligan interjected.

“Not everyone,” Lafayette sniffed. “In any case, he was to be executed. At the top of Montmartre.”

“The cathedral?”

“Hush and allow me to tell this story. He was to be executed on Montmartre. But the guards, they got very tired climbing this hill, so they decided to execute him early, on the side of the hill. They did this. But Denis was a man of God—Oh that is why he was being executed, as a Christian—anyway, he got back up. After he was executed. And he carried his head all the way to the top of Montmartre. That is why he is a saint.”

“Then what happened?”

“What do you mean? He died again at the top of the hill. God cannot put your head back on for you.”

“…But He can raise you from the dead. Cool.” 

Lafayette nodded, completely straight-faced, while everyone else dissolved into laughter. 

“Excuse me,” Alexander said, moving to get up, and Eliza realised that they had somehow ended up much more entwined than she had intended. He really was annoyingly octopus-like. Eliza blushed and moved to the side. “Be back in a moment,” he smiled, and she forgot her embarrassment.

“I trust that you know what you’re doing,” Mulligan said quietly as Alexander left the circle. Eliza glanced at John, but he was still talking weird French saints with Lafayette. 

“I’m not sure that I do,” she said, but she couldn’t make herself feel worried about it. 

“I know you resent being seen as the responsible one. Trust me, I get it. And I know that’s not all you are. But there’s a reason you think things through, and I want to make sure you’re prepared for how much it’s going to hurt.”

He didn’t question whether it would hurt, or even specify what the hurt would be, but Eliza nodded. She didn’t feel angry the way she had with John. She knew what Mulligan meant. She also knew that it didn’t matter. 

“You’re a great friend, Hercules Mulligan.” Eliza couldn’t see the blush on his face, but she could sense it. 

“I just want the best for you.”

“I know.” The real question was: did Eliza want the best for herself? She found herself leaning back away from Mulligan to see Alexander, who was over by the car pulling open a new bag of marshmallows. She stood up and walked over to him, smiling fondly at Mulligan as he pulled himself into the other conversation. Eliza experienced a moment of regret, that it wasn’t Mulligan who set her skin on fire. She loved him, as a friend. The world was weird that way.

“Marshmallow?” Alexander asked and didn’t wait for an answer before he shoved it in her mouth. 

“Mmhmpphm.” Eliza managed around a jumbo marshmallow. Alexander laughed, childishly delighted. 

“You have chocolate all over your face,” Eliza laughed. Of course, he swiped his tongue around his lips in a way that did nothing to remove the chocolate but did make her stomach flip.

“Want to lick it off?” He asked, to her furious blushing.

“You’re disgusting.”

“So you don’t want to taste me?” She kissed him before he could take that line of thought any further. 

“Now there’s chocolate on your face,” he said, several seconds later. Then he licked her. She squeaked and they both banged into a tree.

“Ouch!”

“Hush. You’re too loud.”

“Want to shut me up?”

Eventually, they ended up sitting among the roots of a tree that Eliza was pretty sure was older than their country. The stars filled the sky with more light than Eliza had ever seen. Alexander was glowing, moonlight on his shining face. So beautiful, and he was looking at her like she could compare.

“I don’t ever want to go back,” she said, not caring if it sounded stupid, like a lovesick teenager.

“I thought you were eager to practice psychology, get married, have 2.5 kids, all that stuff..” he didn’t say it judgementally, but Eliza could tell that he couldn’t imagine it.

“I just want to help people be happy in life. But—“ He didn’t let her finish.

“What if you’re not happy? What if it’s not enough?”

The moonlight rippled off the water visible through the trees. The firelight danced off to the left, and their friends’ laughter carried over to them. Eliza sighed.

“Isn’t this enough, Alexander?” She gestured with the hand not wrapped around his back. “We’ll always have this. This day, this moment…I don’t know. You could probably describe it. I can’t.”

“Maybe.” He shifted against her. “You can appreciate it, though. I think that’s more important.”

“You’re not appreciating this, right now?”

“Actually…I am. Right now I am.” It sounded like a revelation.

They didn’t talk for a long time after that, or even kiss. They just sat there in the warm, welcoming night, and Eliza tried to slow down every second and hold it in amber.

It was nice that Mulligan wanted what was best for her. He was a great friend. But Eliza had made her choice. She wanted Alexander, and all the good intentions in the world wouldn’t change that.

She slept.


	11. Utah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their journey is nearly at a close, but there are still some bumps in the road. John makes a decision, Eliza gets some advice, and Alexander relives his past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only two more chapters to go! Enjoy the read!

The next morning, Eliza felt as if she were waking from an enchanted sleep. It was raining ever so lightly, as if the campsite itself was nudging them to move on. They had had their night in paradise, and the real world awaited them now.

It was with a sense of melancholy, then, that Eliza helped break down the tents and clean up around the fire. They were careful not to leave any traces behind, only partially because those were the laws of the park. Even without them, Eliza would have sensed that they were only borrowing this place. The five of them would move on, and the magic would stay here. Eliza wasn’t usually given to such whimsical thoughts, but nothing was usual anymore.

“Okay. So we need to cut down now through Nevada, and then west at Vegas in order to make it to LA,” Alexander said from the passenger’s seat. Today, his head wasn’t buried in a laptop. Since they still weren’t in range of the internet, he was consulting an old, coffee-stained map. There was a part of Eliza that had convinced herself that by erasing themselves from the campsite, they would negate the evening that she and Alexander had spent together. She knew for a fact that he did not care about her the way she cared about him. Didn’t care about anyone that way. She had steeled herself against him showing no more interest in her.

But that wasn’t what happened at all.

Once they had packed up, he’d immediately called shotgun and volunteered to help get them out of the park and on track to Los Angeles. When both his hands were busy with the map, he found a subtle way to put one on her leg.

“What exactly is this conference about?” John asked Mulligan a few minutes later. Eliza immediately felt guilty for never having asked that question herself. Being selfish at the expense of her friends wasn’t acceptable.

“Yeah it’s just a normal conference but the speakers all talk about fashion and shit,” Mulligan said.

“He is trying to find a new sugar daddy, so he can leave me,” Lafayette tried to clarify.

“Laf, if you ever refer to yourself as a sugar daddy again, I will punch you,” Alexander said distractedly, trying to refold the huge map and not doing a very good job of it.

Mulligan heaved a sigh. “I don’t want to leave you. I just want to make money doing an actual job. It’s not that weird.”

“No one in this car has an actual job, so…”

“Woah.” That was Alexander. Eliza glanced over. He was peering at the map.

“What is it?” She asked, heart rate quickening just a little.

“We’re going to hit LA in like fourteen hours of driving,”

“How do you know?” John asked sharply.

“I did the math.” In his head. Of course he did. 

“Shit,” John said. The car was silent for a moment as all of them processed what that meant. Two days, probably, until they were done. Until Mulligan went to his conference, and Alexander started looking for his father, and Lafayette met up some college friends, and Eliza…well, she supposed she would fly back to New York. It felt like a lame ending.

Besides, that left John. She caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror, too pale and sleepless. What would he do?

The silence was interrupted by a variety of buzzes and dings. All of the jumped.

“The hell—?”

“Looks we’re back in the real world. Cell service,” Alexander said drily, scrolling through his messages. 

“Oh my God,” John said, his voice tight.

“John?” Eliza asked. She had to concentrate to keep her eyes on the road. She desperately wanted to look back at him. 

“I—“ He broke off, struggling to get the words out. Tried again. “Martha texted me. Apparently, my father activated a tracker on my phone. He’s flying out here to…collect me.” Eliza drew in a breath. She couldn’t imagine her own dad, as strict and distant as he could sometimes be, ever violating her privacy like that.

A sudden breeze ghosted through the car. Lafayette had rolled down a window. “Would you like to dispose of it?” He asked casually. The method was extreme, but it would probably work. John’s dad would have a hard time finding him if his phone was lying on a random stretch of highway in Western Wyoming. 

John didn’t say anything. Eliza couldn’t turn to see what he was doing. At last, he let out a sigh, far too world-weary for a twenty-three year old. 

“I can’t. I can’t keep running away. Not—I’m not going to marry Martha. No chance in hell. It would make both of us miserable. But I’m not doing—that—either. I’ll have to talk to him.”

“Where are you going to meet him, then?” Mulligan asked levelly, forever practical.

“I guess we’ll see.” And then, cryptically, “It’s all borrowed time, anyway.” Eliza glanced at Alexander’s reaction. His face was thoughtful, and a little pained. Did he regret his choices already? He didn’t seem like someone who was capable of regret, and yet…

“We should try to make it to Vegas,” Alexander decided. “Make your father come dig you out of a strip club. Should be fun,”

Eliza nearly choked. “Alexander!”

“I was joking! Not a strip club, then. Maybe a tiger enclosure.” She knew he was joking, but this wasn’t the moment.

“Do you have to push everything so far? John is going to talk to his dad like an adult.”

Alexander laughed. “Of course I do. I really was joking about the strip club, though.” It was only as normal conversation resumed in the car that Eliza realised how masterfully Alexander had just diffused the tension. All while toeing around the minefield of him and John and everything that might have been. _Could still be,_ Eliza thought, with a pang of jealousy that she did not like one bit.

***

“Um, Eliza?” Alexander asked a couple of hours later. He was still sitting in the passenger seat and co-piloting.

“I thought we don’t merge for a few more miles,” she said.

“Not that. Your phone just buzzed. You have—oh shit—fourteen missed calls from Angelica.”

Eliza slammed a hand on the steering wheel. “Shoot! I completely forgot to talk to her. Here, I’ll find a turn off. We should probably get lunch anyway, and I need to call her back.”

“You are so adorable, _cherie_ ,” Lafayette said fondly, and Eliza blushed. A couple of minutes later they were turning into a place called Roady’s Subs.

“Get me something with roast beef. I’m going to take a walk.” She didn’t know why she was in such a rush to call now. After more than a day of radio silence, a couple more minutes wouldn’t change anything. 

As soon as the ringing stopped, she burst out, “I’m so so sorry, Angelica. Please forgive me. I know I should have called.”

Eliza couldn’t help the smile that bloomed on her face when her sister’s voice came through. “Oh, Eliza, I’ll love you forever and always and you’re my best baby sister don’t tell Peggy, but Oh My God what were you thinking?!”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“There better be a crazy good explanation for this. Like you fell off a cliff or met a charming man and are now desperately in love or something.”

Eliza hesitated a moment too long.

“Eliza?!”

She swallowed. “Alexander and I—“

“Oh.” There were too many different emotions in that single sound for Eliza to dissect. But it reminded her of one of her sister’s other cryptic answers. She knew what that was about now.

“Wait, did you know about John’s fiancee? Is that what you weren’t telling?” She couldn’t blame her for wanting to be discreet. 

“I—oh, Eliza. Yeah, I know about Martha. So that’s what happened between him and John. But then did you just—“

The confusion in her sister’s voice was worse than anyone else’s judgement. But she was also the person to whom Eliza could give voice to the thoughts that no one else would ever get to hear. 

“Is Alexander really that bad? Am I completely deluding myself, Ange? I know the two of you, that you—and I know he’s like that, but also he’s not, and I don’t know. I just feel so helpless. I think I’m in love with him.” She didn’t intend for those words to come out of her mouth, but here they were, and they could not be taken back. 

The pause was almost too long, and when Angelica spoke, she sounded choked. “No, he’s not.” Was her sister trying not to cry? “He’s the most brilliant man I’ve ever met, and you know I don’t say that lightly. Not that he isn’t—please be careful, Eliza. He’s an icarus, and someday he might fly too close to the sun.”

“I know.” Eliza closed her eyes, waiting for the rest of the lecture. It didn’t come.

“But you’re you,” her sister said. “And if you can love me for the person I am, and Peggy, and all the rest of us, then I don’t think I can tell you not to love him too. I just—I want you to know that even though he’s brilliant, you, my dear sister, are the best person that I have ever known. You deserve whatever you want.”

Eliza now found herself fighting back her own tears, but of course, her sister nipped that in the bud. “Now don’t get all emotional on me. Tell me everything that’s happened.”

And so Eliza did.

***

Eliza ate half her roast beef sandwich without really thinking about it. It wasn’t very good. They were going to hit the road again in about half an hour, but it turned out that everyone needed a stretch break. Mulligan had decided to use the time to bench press a fallen tree, and the boys were egging him on. Eliza watched from further away, rubbing her tired eyes.

“If Le Petit Lion hurts you, I will snap his neck.” Lafayette had come up beside her without her noticing. Eliza shivered. Lafayette had a way of promising violence unlike anyone she had ever met, and she knew him well enough by this point to be certain that he meant every word. 

“Don’t, Laf. I’ll be fine.” He snorted.

“You are made of stronger stuff than you look, but do not hesitate to call for me. Just because I am Alexander’s friend…”

“You do realise that every single one of you has offered to protect me, don’t you? It’s starting to freak me out.”

Lafayette frowned. “I am the best protector, though. No?”

Eliza couldn’t help but laugh. “You are all ridiculous, and I can’t believe I put up with any of you.”

“Mmm. You are clearly not as wise as you seem.”

“Oh stop it and get back in the car. At this rate we’re going to have to stop before we get to Vegas.”

“As you say, _mademoiselle_.”

Road trips could really give you a sense of how empty so much of the country was. Eliza drove and drove and saw nothing of interest for hours. Mulligan introduced them to the podcast of a lifestyle blogger who was going to be at his conference, and Eliza watched the miles tick down, both bored and unwilling to reach their destination. The lack of sleep was making her nauseous. She cracked her jaw, trying to stay awake. The little waterfall already felt very far away.

The cramp hit out of nowhere.

One minute she was feeling tired and vaguely nauseous, the next she was trying not to scream. 

“Eliza?” Alexander asked, his voice tight with worry.

“Cramp —I don’t know. Hold on.” Agonisingly, she pulled over onto the side of the highway. Alexander hit the hazards before she had a chance to think through the pain enough to do that. “Sorry. It’ll—“  
That was when the nausea graduated from vague to acute, and Eliza found herself scrabbling open the door of the car and tumbling onto the highway, retching. Distantly, she heard other doors opening and closing, and then someone was holding her hair. 

The guys were talking above her, but she couldn’t focus on what they were saying because she was too busy tracking her insides as they climbed relentlessly up her throat.

Finally, an indeterminable amount of time later, the retching stopped. Her throat was agony. She must have been dry heaving at least for a few minutes.

“Are you done?” Mulligan asked her. 

“I think so. For—now.” Her voice was wrecked. “What’s going on?”

“Could it be food poisoning?”

“M-maybe.” There was nothing left in her stomach.

We’ll find the nearest motel and call a doctor, okay?”

“I’m fine.” There was a headache building behind her eyes.

No one bothered to acknowledge her protests. “Here, I’ll help you up.” Alexander was lifting her onto her feet. The world did a flip, and she found herself clinging to him.

“Sorry,” she said again. They talked over her.

“Get her in the backseat.”

“Does food poisoning really come on that fast?”

“Fuck me this is bad.”

“I can drive. Here. Grab the keys.”

She could have figured out who was speaking, if she wanted to, but that seemed like a lot of effort, and she was more worried about the ghost of a cramp that was beginning to make itself known in her left side. She managed to walk to the backseat on her own, but she was grateful for Alexander’s arm steering her. The world was very unsteady.

“Lay down.” Obediently, she did. But there was something missing.

“Seatbelt?” She asked. Safety was important.

“I’ll take care of it. You’re okay. You’re going to be fine.” Alexander’s voice sounded crackly, not like she was used to. She wondered if it was her hearing. Nothing else was working right…maybe her ears…she didn’t think she’d ever felt this awful in her entire life.

That was until the next wave of cramps hit. She gagged, but there was nothing to come up. Instead, she bit down on something soft, anything to distract her from the pain that was eating her inside out. 

“Shh. Shhh. It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay.” The litany went on and on above her head. When the pain struck once more, she forgot who was speaking, but she clung to the voice, soothing and rhythmic, matching the pounding in her head and the rolling beneath her.

Eliza lost track of time. It was meaningless next to the pain. She thought she threw up again at some point, too weak to move away. Strong arms picked her up and carried her. The sounds around her changed, but she couldn’t identify them. None of them would give her relief from the pain. Someone pressed a bottle to her lips, but she refused to drink. It would just come right back up again. 

She was lying in a bed. It might have been comfortable if her whole body wasn’t still screaming in pain. Or maybe not. She couldn’t tell. She just wanted the pain to stop.

“—Food poisoning—“ filtered through. She remembered hearing it before, but she wasn’t sure what it meant. Was she dying? “Rest, fluids, call tomorrow if—“ She faded out again.

“—We thought it was just a normal fever. I thought she was going to get better, and then I got sick too, and I didn’t care very much whether either of us got better. But I still tried to take care of her, I really did. I gave her my water, and I rubbed her head like she used to when I was a baby. I guess I was still a kid. I don’t—it doesn’t feel like that. I tried so hard to get her better, but she only got worse. I don’t remember a lot then because I was so out of it. I dreamt of fire, a hurricane of fire, and nuclear bombs and stuff I can’t remember but still scares the shit out of me. And then one day I woke up, and I had enough energy to turn over, and there she was next to me, already cold. At first I thought it was my fever, but my temperature had broken and she was dead. While I was just lying there, sick, not doing anything. I don’t know why—I don’t know why I’m telling you this. You’re asleep and besides, you’re going to be fine. You’re not dying. It’s just food poisoning. The doctor said it’ll pass. There’s a doctor. It’ll be fine. Fine.” Eliza’s eyes cracked open the barest bit. The room was dark. She was in a bed. There was a hand combing incessantly through her hair. It was shaking.

Groggily, she reached for it. It was warm. Alexander, she thought, proud of herself, and then she fell back asleep.

The next time she woke, the room was bright, and Eliza felt totally, gloriously empty. Every limb felt wrung out and too heavy, but there was no pain. She breathed deeply. She had forgotten what it felt like not to be in pain. Slowly, blurry memories filtered back in. One of her hands was very warm. She turned her head heavily to see Alexander curled up in an awkward position next to her. There were deep shadows under his eyes, deeper than normal. He had fallen asleep holding her hand. The rush of warmth that followed that realisation nearly overwhelmed her. He looked exhausted though. She shouldn’t wake him.

As soon as she thought it, his eyes opened. She watched them widen as they met hers. “Oh. How do you feel?” He asked, the smile slowly creeping onto his face.

“Better. Still tired. I’m so sorry I worried you.” A shadow crossed his face.

“It doesn’t matter. You’re better.” Eliza thought that it did matter, very much, but she was too sore and achy to push him. Alexander was already pulling back the blankets. “I’ll go get the others. They’ll want to see you.”

Eliza suddenly became acutely aware of how disgusting she felt. Two days of camping and driving combined with sweat and vomit. She did not even want to imagine what her hair must look like, hanging loose all night. Vainly, she tried to straighten herself out a little before Alexander returned, and ended up settling for propping herself up on the headboard, still weighed down by exhaustion. 

“ _Cherie_!” Came Lafayette’s exuberant cry as they entered the room. Mulligan wisely put out a hand to stop him from immediately jumping on the bed and squishing Eliza, but he too was smiling. John hung back a bit, his face unreadable, but he gave Eliza a little nod, and she smiled at him. Alexander immediately climbed back onto the bed next to her, curling up in a distinctly cat-like fashion. 

“How are you feeling?” Mulligan asked, his dark eyes looking her up and down. Eliza blushed.

“So much better. I mean, very empty, but better. Thank you so much for taking care of me. I’m sorry I’m probably delaying you right now. I know we need to get going. If I can just shower—“

“Eliza. Don’t worry about it.” Mulligan said firmly.

“There is absolutely no rush,” John added drily.

“There is no shame in needing other people, _cherie_.” Eliza ducked her head, overcome with warmth.

“Are you sure you’re ready?” Alexander asked. “My—sometimes you think you’re better, but you’re not.”

“Thanks, but it was food poisoning, and it’s gone now. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re not driving yet,” Mulligan said. Eliza didn’t bother to argue. She was too tired to even consider stuffing herself back behind the wheel. “And you and Alexander need to eat. I don’t want either of you fainting back there.” Eliza glanced, surprised, at Alexander. He blushed, and Lafayette laughed warmly.

“ _Le Petit Lion_ has been guarding your side since you fell ill. We could not pry him away even for food. But now it is time to eat.”

A few minutes later, Eliza had cleansed herself with a heavenly shower and sat in the back seat of her car, chewing on some dry toast. She didn’t yet want to risk anything else. Alexander offered her another piece, and she took it gratefully.

“Thank you,” she said, meeting his eyes and talking about more than toast.

“I wasn’t that worried,” he lied. It disturbed her how well he could do it. There was no dishonesty in his warm, brown eyes, and yet Eliza remembered the night before. She should let it go, probably, but she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to leave him alone, there in his own head.

Eliza leaned close, speaking too softly for anyone else in the car to hear. “I’m sorry about your mom. I can’t imagine.”

Alexander froze, his eyes going wide. He had thought she was asleep. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again.

“I’m still here,” Eliza whispered.


	12. Las Vegas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter of the first chapter. John confronts his father, Eliza does what she does best, and for once, everyone is a little bit lucky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One final, extra-long chapter. It doesn't wrap everything up, but hopefully it's a satisfying ending to a long, whirlwind journey. Enjoy.

The mood in the car was not dark, exactly, but expectant. Tense. Emotions weren’t running as high as they had been after John’s revelation, but there weren’t going to be any more delays or side trips. They had left paradise in Wyoming.

Still, Eliza felt much better after eating some food and resting in the back seat. Alexander quickly fell asleep propped against her shoulder. Eliza wasn’t surprised. She’d gotten a lot more sleep the night she’d been sick than he had. By the time he woke up, they were about an hour outside of Vegas, and Eliza insisted on taking the wheel again. They were so close; it felt wrong to let Mulligan take them the rest of the way. He moved aside graciously.

It was undeniably nice to be back behind the wheel, but driving meant that she was hyper-aware of every road sign they passed. The miles ticked lower. Eventually, she had to ask. 

“So, we have one night in Vegas. Mulligan needs to be in LA tomorrow. What’s the plan?” She hoped, probably in vain, that someone else had been able to think further ahead than she had. There was a brief silence, broken by Lafayette.

“I happen to know a perfect man,” he announced mysteriously. Mulligan groaned. Eliza internally agreed.

“If your parents had any idea the shit you get up to over here…”

“If they cared at all what I did, they would not have sent me in the first place. Their loss is your gain, _mon ami._ ,” Lafayette retorted, and Eliza didn’t look, but she could imagine the shit-eating grin.

“Right,” Mulligan deadpanned.

“Laf, Eliza can’t put ‘your man’ into Google Maps. Be a little more specific?” Alexander asked. 

“Number 4, Sunset Terrace,” Lafayette said, rolling his eyes at the pedantry of requiring an actual address.

“John, will you type that in?” John was in the passenger’s seat at the moment, looking out the window. He jumped a little when Eliza addressed him.

“Yeah. Sure.” He had been distracted ever since they left the hotel. Eliza wondered if he had been secretly hoping that she wouldn’t recover so quickly, and she couldn’t really blame him. She had never met Senator Laurens, but his reputation preceded him. 

Eliza shared a look with Alexander. He was clearly thinking about John too, and his slight frown told Eliza that he was wishing he could help. But Alexander had been quick to burn that bridge, and Eliza sensed that it would not be so easily rebuilt. He glanced away, and the moment passed.

They drove on.

“I don’t think I like this place,” Eliza observed a few minutes later as she white-knocked her way down a street that was already teeming with revellers, despite the relatively early hour. Everything glittered and shone weirdly in the bright light. Eliza imagined that the city could maybe be enchanting in the dark, but in full daylight it was just garish. A zebra on a leash passed by on the sidewalk, and Eliza had to concentrate to avoid crashing the car. Everyone around them drove on, unfazed. 

“Animal cruelty. I see what you mean.” Mulligan muttered, looking away.

“Well that and—“ she was forced to swerve as a crowd of tourists poured into the street, ”—whoah ok it’s fine. Everything just seems so fake. Like it was all made to be ogled at instead of for any kind of real purpose. I mean I guess that’s what I was expecting, but…” she trailed off, not really able to describe it.

“I think you’re wrong,” Alexander disagreed bluntly, craning his neck to look at a marquee shaped like the Taj Mahal. “This isn’t really any different from anywhere else. Everywhere does it all the time. Trying to shine, trying to look different while still serving the same four bland menu items. Any city you go to. Vegas is just a little bit more honest about its own seediness than other places. I can appreciate that.” 

“Huh.” Eliza hadn’t thought of it that way, but it still didn’t sit right with her. Sometimes she hated how much more articulate Alexander was than her.

“But shouldn’t people at least try to be authentic?” She tried.

“Who even knows what their authentic self is?” Alexander responded immediately, effectively ending the debate. It was obviously an impossible question. Eliza could never honestly say what about her was authentic, and she was the only person who could possibly know that. Which Eliza was the genuine one? The Eliza her parents raised? The one who snuck into the city with her sisters? The one who wanted every moment of every day to be spent with Alexander? Or the one who feared all the rest, who constantly worried that her choices were wrong, and that she would end up crushed and alone? She was almost glad when the stretch limo nearly collided with them. Her focus went back to the road.

As it turned out, Number 4, Sunset Terrace was the address of a lavish hotel. Or rather, a hotel that would have seemed lavish anywhere other than Las Vegas. Here, it was a rather middle of the road complex that proclaimed itself to be the Marie Antoinette. 

“Not in the best taste, is it?” John said drily. 

Lafayette waved him off. “It is all in good fun. Pierre claims that he is descended from the Sun King, but he is probably lying. Makes for good business.”

“Is Pierre your friend?” Eliza asked as she bemusedly followed the instructions of the valet in front of the hotel. 

“That is maybe not the word I would use. Aha, here he is.” Lafayette was waving at a tall, pale man dressed entirely in what looked like authentic clothing from the French Revolution. 

_“Gilbert! Ça fait trop longtemps. Venez, venez. Tes amis doivent voire l’hotel. Ça vient de prendre la meilleure partie de vingt ans de ma vie._ ‘ello, my friends. Welcome to ze Marie Antoinette.” He turned to them expansively, gesturing and speaking in the most ridiculously camp French accent that Eliza had ever heard. At his insistent motioning, Eliza gave over control of her car to the valet, and they all got out.

“Gilbert told me zat you could be passing trough. I simply ‘ad to ‘ave you stay in ze Marie Antoinette. As you can see, it is ze only autentically 18th century French establishment in the city. We ‘ave boasted such guests as Paris ‘ilton and Michel Jackson. If I could show you—“ Pierre spoke a mile a minute, herding them into an opulent lobby decorated in the style of Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors. He pointed out every detail, from the crown moulding to the hidden rooms that, historically, were used for royal trysts. About halfway through the impromptu tour, Eliza made the mistake of looking at Lafayette, who was silently laughing hard enough to shake his entire body. Alexander had obviously noticed too, because he kept trying to force Lafayette to have to talk through his fit of the giggles, but Pierre was so intent on showing off his hotel that he didn’t even notice.

Finally, just when Eliza thought she herself might crack if Pierre said one more word about “ze little cupids” and the expertly aged paint on their bottoms, they were deposited at their rooms, a sprawling, three bedroom suite. Pierre gleefully told them that a rock star had once overdosed in the splendid bathroom. 

The moment he was out of the door, Lafayette collapsed onto one of the beds, crying with laughter. 

“Laf,” Alexander said, smiling broadly, “what the hell was with his accent?” Lafayette had almost recovered at this point, but Alexander’s question sent him into another five minutes of snorting laughter which of course set off the rest of them, laughing at Laf’s laugh.

At long last, all of them were recovered, having tumbled onto various parts of the bed and floor. Eliza was feeling a little light-headed and her stomach muscles were sternly reminding her that she had been throwing up less than twenty-four hours previously.

“Pierre went to school with my papa. Papa went into law while Pierre was obsessed with history. Papa thought he might be a professor, until Pierre made a load of money selling something—we do not even know what—and decided to buy a hotel in Las Vegas. He has put his several advanced degrees to the noble use of entrapping tourists with faux-french history and expensive gilt paint. But he is a good man, really,” Lafayette finished with a smile. 

“And you didn’t think it would be at all important to warn us what we were getting into?” Mulligan asked, faux-grumpily. 

Before Lafayette could begin to defend himself, they were interrupted by a loud bang. 

Eliza whipped around. John had just slammed his hand against the dark wooden desk and was staring at the large bouquet of roses perched on its surface. Eliza felt her heart sink. Slowly, as if expecting the flowers to turn into Venus Fly Traps at any minute, John reached among them and pulled out an embroidered note.

“It’s an invitation,” he said flatly, but without prompting. “My father has brought Martha and is requesting my presence at 7pm at a place called Beauty and Essex. Tonight.” Very carefully, he folded the note and set it back down. His mouth was creased in a grim line, but his voice was still light. “Well, it looks like jail break has officially come to an end.” Alexander made an aborted move towards John, but held himself back. All the laughter had been sucked out of the room.

“We’ll come along with you,” Eliza said into the silence. John’s head jerked towards her, his eyes wide.

“No—don’t—you don’t have anything to do with this mess. And you were the one telling me all along: I just have to face him and tell him no. That’s all there is to it. I don’t want—there’s only one more day of all this, so y’all go have fun. I can handle it.”

“If you are certain,” Lafayette said slowly. All of them were shifting uncomfortably on the plush pillows. It wasn’t like they didn’t know that the adventure had to end, but knowing was different from feeling that end breathing down their necks. And John might be putting a brave face on it, but it was obvious that he was terrified of his father. But he was right; it was Eliza who had told him that he couldn’t keep running away. She still believed that, but this wasn’t what she’d meant by it. 

“No, John. We’re coming with.” Everyone looked at her. Eliza swallowed. It felt like a bigger moment than it should. Just dinner. Just a father and son. 

“We took this trip together, the five of us, and that’s how we’ll finish it. We’re your friends, John, and we’ll be there.” No one said anything. John looked like he was trying not to cry, and Eliza’s heart was racing, but she was certain this was the right choice. She took another breath to steady herself. She was the practical one, and her friends needed her. “Right. I need to start getting ready. Sounds like it’s a fancy restaurant, and I still look like I threw up yesterday.” She stood up decisively and made her way towards the bathroom. Alexander caught her hand as she went, and she turned. 

“Eliza Schuyler, you are full of wonders.” Eliza face grew suddenly very warm, and she shivered. 

“What am I supposed to say to that?”

“Nothing. Just an observation. Go get dressed.”

***

Two hours later, Lafayette was putting the final pins in Eliza’s bun. At this point, no one even commented on his newly discovered hairstyling abilities. Eliza was starting to suspect that he’d had an over-abundance of access to YouTube “How To” videos as a child.

The only evening dress that Eliza had chosen from Mulligan’s stash—the one she’d worn in Chicago—was severely wrinkled from all the time squished in a suitcase, but Pierre practically fell over himself getting it dry-cleaned and ready for her. It was strange to wear it again. So much had changed since that night at the bar. Alexander had called her an angel and he’d been wrong and she’d wanted to kiss him. Automatically, she glanced over to him, fiddling unnecessarily with the suit Lafayette had dug up for him. He sensed her looking and winked. Eliza blushed. John was frowning vaguely in her direction, but she didn’t think he’d even noticed. He was too anxious about his father and Martha, playing with the cuffs on his suit even more compulsively than Alexander was. The two of them mirrored each other unconsciously. 

There was a lump in Eliza’s throat. Who was she to come between Alexander and John? She knew it was an unreasonable and egocentric question; there had been many factors to that particular collapse, but it didn’t ease her guilt. Not that that was anything new. Angelica had repeatedly told her that she should have been a Catholic.

“Are you sure you feel okay?” Alexander asked with his usual preternatural senses. She flattened her dress in the mirror, and tried to keep her voice light. Tonight wasn’t about her own insecurities.

“Do I look that bad?” She joked.

“You’re beautiful, but you’re too pale.” He reached for her cheek and she let him, unable to stop her pulse from hammering in her throat. “Better, still pale,” he concluded.

“I’ll be okay.” She was feeling a little dizzy. She must remember to drink plenty of water. Eliza hoped this restaurant wouldn’t be one of those expensive places that assumed you wanted sparkling. “We need to do this. We need to be there for each other.” She took a deep, steadying breath. It was hard with Alexander standing so close, with the weight of all that had happened between them and John lying heavy on her chest. John was still only a few feet away, pretending not to be able to hear them, and she was glad. She didn’t know what to say to him.

“You are too good for this world,” Alexander said, pulling her back to him. Eliza shook her head. She wished people wouldn’t joke about that.

“Everyone ready?” She said, loudly, to everyone. Mulligan yelled his yes from one of the bedrooms, and Lafayette groaned, but John just nodded stiffly. He had the look of a man about to go into battle. From the rumours Eliza had been hearing about his father, that might not be too far from the truth.

Pierre had a car waiting for them. Of course he did. The gesture became even more ridiculous when Eliza realised it was taking them approximately four blocks. The car stopped in front of an older, sophisticated restaurant that looked like it was trying to be the 21st century, co-ed version of a gentleman’s club.

At the entrance, John laughed drily. “So very Senator Laurens. Conservative, refined, with some nasty rot underneath and a token attempt at caring about the next generation.” John shared Alexander’s ability to become more eloquent under stress.

“We’ll sit at the bar while you talk to your father,” Eliza said, trying to project calm into the tense knot of people.

“Ready to stage a rescue mission if necessary,” Lafayette added, totally undermining her efforts.

But John ignored both of them, squaring his shoulders and walking purposefully forwards, into the restaurant. Although the place was fairly crowded, there was no mistaking the man with a handlebar moustache sitting erect at a candlelit table in the centre of the room. He looked like John, if John had been ironed and starched and the glint in his eyes had tended towards cold and calculating rather than impulsive and red hot. Next to him, there was a young woman, but Eliza only got a glimpse of thick red hair before John blocked her from sight and Alexander was pulling Eliza behind the bar and out of his way.

“If you keep looking at John like a mother hen who’s chick is about to be eaten by a fox, John’s dad is going to get suspicious. Come on.” The remaining four of them sat down at the bar with a partial view of John in the dining area. Mulligan ordered whiskey, Lafayette wine, Alexander some fruity cocktail thing, and Eliza desperately wanted to order water, but at a look from the server got the weakest beer she could find. Her still very empty stomach flipped at the first sip. 

For several minutes, they sat in silence.

“Do you actually have a plan for this? For helping John?” Mulligan asked when it became clear that there was nothing immediate to do. The question was a valid one.

“I just know it’ll be better. If we’re here. If we stick together,” Eliza said, with more confidence than she felt. There was no real relation between that principle and stopping one of your best friend’s fathers from forcing him into a loveless marriage. And it wasn’t even like they’d always had each other. They’d met two weeks ago. 

And yet leaving him at this restaurant felt inexpressibly wrong.

More time passed. Alexander hunted for a piece of mango at the bottom of his drink.

“This is frustrating,” Lafayette declared. 

Eliza agreed. Through a rack of wineglasses, she could just barely make out John, sitting stiffly at the edge of his chair and frowning.

“We have to be there for him.” Eliza said firmly. She clung to that decision, unable to do anything to actually help. If Alexander and John were still together, Alexander would have rescued John, would have talked his father into the ground and carried him away on a chariot of rhetoric. If…

“I hate waiting,” Alexander said, doing that thing with his mouth on a straw that Eliza had to consciously look away from. When she looked back, he had stopped.

The boys got more drinks. Eliza nursed her beer, ignoring the way her stomach twisted uneasily. John was looking increasingly uncomfortable at the other table. His posture, not amazing at the best of times, was beginning to curl in like a turtle. There was no yelling or obvious disruption, but Eliza didn’t know whether that was better or worse. Senator Laurens was an unknown quantity to her. 

“I think I feel more useless than if we’d stayed at the weird hotel,” Mulligan said. Eliza knew he wasn’t trying to blame her, but she felt it anyway.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” she said when she couldn’t take the silence anymore. She stood up quickly enough to get a head rush. She needed some water.

Alexander touched her arm. “Do you want—“

“I’m fine. Be back in a second.” She fled. 

She shouldn’t have been surprised that the bathroom was huge. A floor length mirror and a chaise longue had their own space next to wide sinks and carpeted bathroom stalls. Eliza paused at the mirror. Alexander was right, she did look too pale. She pushed a strand of hair back behind her ear. Nothing she could do about it now. 

Still looking in the mirror, she did a quick internal inventory. Nauseous, yes, but not like she had been. She wasn’t going to throw up again. She should get some water and food as soon as possible. The price tags were freaking her out a little bit, but she knew that was stupid. She had the money, and she needed to eat. She also needed to stop hiding in a bathroom. She had to be stronger than that. The others needed her.

It felt good to run warm water over her hands. It grounded her. One more breath, and she’d be ready to go back out there.

A stall door opened, and Eliza, looking through the mirror, saw a tall, unhealthily thin young woman with thick red hair and eyes so blue they were almost purple, step out. She was striking, although Eliza wasn’t sure if she’d call her pretty. The woman was wiping her eyes, which were swollen and puffy. Eliza recognised her from the half glimpse she’d gotten earlier.

“Are you Martha?”

The woman froze, staring at her, a deer caught in the headlights. 

Eliza turned, offered a hand. “I’m a friend of John’s. It was my car we were taking on the road trip. I’m Eliza. It’s nice to meet you.” Martha was still staring at her with dinner plate eyes.

“Why did he bring you?” Was the first thing she decided to say.

Eliza swallowed, smiled again, trying to look non-threatening. “We wanted to be here. He feels terrible, and he’s scared, of his father and…the rest. Probably of you, a little bit. But he decided he was done running, and we wanted to support that.”

Martha looked at her for another moment, weighing her options, balanced on the precipice. Eliza recognised the look a moment before the floodgates opened in a breathy rush.

“I told John we have to marry. I know—I know he doesn’t love me, but I don’t understand why he won’t do it! Senator Laurens will disinherit him if he doesn’t. I don’t know what he’ll do. And I—my parents don’t want me in the house, and I can’t pay for the hospital again, but I can’t go to work right now and everyone is talking about it and if we were married at least, at least—“ She was sobbing too hard to continue, the tears she’d just barely wiped away in the stall returning with a vengeance.

Even though Eliza had met this woman less than a minute ago, she felt an overwhelming wave of compassion for her. She reached out and hugged her. Martha draped her willowy frame over Eliza, folding into her.

“Shh, shh it’s all right. We’ll figure it out. It’s all going to be all right.” 

“I’m so sorry. I’m not—I’m not usually like this I swear. I just, ugh,” she cried harder. Eliza’s mind was spinning with the need to come up with a solution. There had to be a way to help both this woman and John. Eliza didn’t believe that making people miserable was ever the answer, even if it made them safe.

And then, like a miracle, it came to her.

“Marrying John isn’t the only way out of this.”

“What?” And Martha turned to her with such hope in her face that Eliza knew that she needed to make the idea work, whatever her own doubts.

“I don’t think that’s the answer for either of you. Let me see if I understand. Your parents are angry with you, and don’t want to support you. John’s dad won’t help you unless you marry him. You aren’t at a place where you can support yourself with a job right now. Is that the basic idea?”

Martha nodded and sniffed. There were still tears glinting in her striking eyes, but she seemed to appreciate Eliza laying it out so directly. Eliza took another breath. “So. It sounds like what you need right now is some help from someone who isn’t going to hold it over you or commit you to something longterm.”

“I’m alone,” Martha said flatly.

Eliza smiled. “No, you’re not. Wash your face, and I’ll help you put some makeup on. Then I have someone I want you to meet.”

***

Within five minutes of meeting her, Lafayette had, completely unprompted, offered Martha a room in his house and money for therapy. Coming from anyone else, it would have been forward to the point of being creepy, but Lafayette was so unselfconsciously generous that Martha was soon smiling gently, the sparkle in her eye doing much more to hide the tear stains than Eliza’s makeup job ever could.

“I know this sounds weird, but Laf’s been funding my fashion career for years now. I’m just headed to LA for a big conference, actually. As long as you can handle a somewhat invasive number of bear hugs, you’ll be fine,” Mulligan said reassuringly.

“Just know that he cheats at scrabble,” Alexander added. “Don’t let him get away with it.”

Martha looked at all of them like she still wasn’t sure whether or not the whole thing was a dream. She wiped another tear from the corner of her eye. “Thank you, all of you. Thank you so much. I don’t understand, really, I mean, you’re John’s friends.” Eliza didn’t think anyone else saw Alexander’s uncomfortable shift. “And probably, if I had any other options, I’d tell you you’re crazy, but…”

“Listen, I know the feeling,” Eliza picked up when Martha seemed to have lost her words. “You know I thought I’d take a road trip by myself this summer? And then I met these guys, and everything changed. You’re right. It does sound crazy. But it might just be meant to be.”

“Martha, where have you—oh.” John had just rounded the corner of the bar, looking drawn and stressed. He looked between Martha and his friends, trying to read the situation. “What—“

“I am making more friends, _mon ami_ ,” Lafayette said simply while Eliza was still struggling to come up with a way to explain the situation.

“And I think we need to tell your dad that the engagement is off,” Martha added, raising herself up to her full, impressive height.

John stared at her, then shook his head. “I don’t understand what the fuck’s going on.”

“Don’t worry, it’s Eliza’s magic. Come on, let’s explain the deal to this senator,” Alexander said. Eliza wanted to roll her eyes, but no one else seemed to think that Alexander’s dramatics were out of place.

And maybe, in a way, that grandiose statement was warranted. There was a power to the moment, Martha and John leading the way as they all crossed the restaurant to Senator Laurens’ table. Maybe it was Eliza’s imagination, but she felt like the whole restaurant stopped to watch as they passed. It must have been her imagination. A group of young people walking together would never make these people look at them, at least for any other reason than to consider whether they should call the cops. But she felt it all the same.

“Father, Martha and I have come to an agreement,” John said as they approached. Senator Laurens just raised his eyebrows, taking in the group that flanked his son. Eliza was certain that she did not imagine the disapproval in his eyes, and next to her, she felt Alexander straighten.

“I see you just wanted me to pick up an expensive tab before coming to your senses.”

John looked like he wanted to flinch, but didn’t. “Actually, Lafayette and Eliza had more to do with figuring it out than I did.”

The senator’s eyes skated over Lafayette and settled on Eliza. She cursed herself for flushing. Her earlier dizziness was creeping back. “A woman’s touch, then. You have a weakness, son.” He smiled, and Eliza’s skin crawled.

“We’re not getting married.” Martha said it in a garbled rush, but the senator managed to catch her meaning. His eyes widened. “We’re not getting married.” She repeated, a little more slowly. “We don’t want to. You already know that my parents aren’t supporting me. John doesn’t need you. We’re adults, and we’ve made other arrangements.”

“If you don’t mind me saying, it was being a little too adult that got you into this mess in the first place,” Senator Laurens said snidely.

“Actually I do mind,” and Eliza could hear the fire in John’s voice again. Finally. “We made a mistake. So fucking what. We dealt with it how we needed to and we’re making it work. It’s you who’s not letting us grow up, all because you’re terrified for your precious reputation, scared that people will see you for the flaming fucking hypocrite that you are. I admit to my mistakes, and I’m learning. Three decades since you fucked my mom and got guilt-tripped into a stupid marriage, and what have you learned?” John slammed a wad of bills on the table. And don’t worry about the tab. We’re even.” 

Without even waiting to see his father’s expression, John turned back to the rest of them. “That’s done. Now let’s go to a real bar.”

And just like that, it was over. 

They left the restaurant, spilling out onto a brightly lit Las Vegas street. 

“Damn, that felt good,” Mulligan said, summing it up right there. Eliza found herself walking next to Martha, who was staring around her like a woman reborn. 

“I’ve never been to Las Vegas before,” she breathed.

“That reminds me,” Lafayette said. “Are any of you feeling that tonight is a lucky night?”

“Oh, absolutely. John and Martha successfully deflected the shotgun. Congratulations,” Alexander said with a crooked smile.

***

Before trying their hands at any slot machines, they stopped for burgers. Alexander continued to fuss about how pale Eliza looked until well after she started stuffing her face with fries. He worried as intensely as he did everything else.

Meanwhile, Martha was making an effort to eat, but Eliza could tell she was not enjoying herself. Unfortunately, she caught Eliza looking. She grimaced.

“You really do want to take care of everyone, don’t you?” Martha said astutely. Eliza ducked her head.

“I just want people to be happy.”

“That must be exhausting.”

Eliza blinked, too tired to argue, which really did prove Martha’s point.

The other woman lifted up her hands in a gesture of surrender. “Look, I’m not complaining.” Then she leaned in a little closer and said, “By the way, what’s the deal with John and, what’s his name, uh, Alexander?”

Eliza knew that she didn’t have any kind of poker face. Martha’s eyes widened.

“At first I thought you and Alexander were together.” Well, that was gratifying, at least. She glanced at Alexander and John, who were standing close together in another corner of the restaurant, heads bent together, talking intently. Did she and Alexander look anything like that connected?

“We are. Kind of. He and John were before. Not that long ago. I’m sorry. It sounds weird to talk about, and it’s all so new. I don’t—maybe if you knew Alexander—“ Everyone, John, Angelica, Lafayette, even Alexander himself, was judging Eliza for her choice. They thought she was naive, that it would all end in pain, and none of it would be worth it. Maybe they were right, and this was a meaningless rebellion, a silly attempt at asserting herself when she was always destined to be nothing more than a kind, church-going soccer mom. Maybe—

Martha gave a low whistle.

“Well I think you scored. I’ve never seen anyone look at someone else the way Alexander looks at you. And those eyes…damn.” Eliza stared at Martha, completely taken aback. 

“Thank you. You don’t think I’m making a mistake?”

“I have no idea, but I don’t think it matters.” She took a big gulp of her milkshake before continuing. “Maybe you’ll be sad later. We all will. Doesn’t mean you’ll regret it, or that it doesn’t mean anything, or that you’re wrong to try.” Eliza didn’t really think Martha was talking about her anymore, but she didn’t mind. The words brought to mind something that Alexander had said once, when everyone else was asleep. _All stories are tragedies if you keep going long enough._

Eliza intended to keep going.

***

There was something exhausting about the artificial lighting of casinos. Or maybe it was that Eliza had spent the day before puking her guts out, and she still wasn’t totally recovered. Regardless, it was barely eleven o’clock when the whirring of the slot machines started to make her go cross-eyed. She was leaning against a table, watching Mulligan and Martha making each other laugh with wild interpretations of the different symbols on the machine. Eliza was surprised to see them getting along so well, and then wondered why she thought that. As it turned out, Martha had done some modelling at some point, and had a lot of negative things to say about the fashion industry. Which had sent Mulligan on an impassioned and surprisingly verbose speech on the importance of normal-sized, non-supermodel advertisements for the overall health of the clothing industry. Somehow, this had turned into making up stories about why cherries showed up so much on gambling machines.

Eliza didn’t want to bother them, but she would love to sit down. John and Lafayette had an open chair beside them, but they had been drinking for hours now, and Eliza wasn’t feeling all that touchy-feely. Besides, Lafayette was wrapping himself around John like an octopus, and Eliza wasn’t sure how Martha would react to that. Then again, another look at the machines told Eliza she was enjoying her new-found freedom too much to notice. It seemed like Eliza was the only one worrying about anything tonight.

But where was Alexander? A quick look around established that he wasn’t in the near any of the rest of them.

Finding him gave her something to do other than lean against the table, although it turned out that the search didn’t take long. Eliza found him sitting at the bar overlooking the main floor. She remembered finding him on the roof of that club in Chicago and wondered if this was a habit.

“Corralling your ducklings, Eliza?” There was another weird, fruity cocktail in front of him, but he didn’t sound drunk. Maybe a little tipsy. His comment had no bite, but Eliza blushed anyway.

“No. Just feeling like a third wheel. Fifth wheel, maybe.”

“Ah, so you’ve come to make a bicycle,” He smiled. Even basic wordplay made him so childishly happy. 

“Please don’t make a riding joke,” she said tiredly. He grinned wider. She should know better than to encourage him. She sat down next to him, looking out over the floor. Masses of people staring intently at screens. Lights and music and oxygen all engineered to keep them. Removed from it, it was more than a little creepy.

“I hate gambling.” Alexander was voicing her own thoughts, but she turned to him in surprise. It seemed unlike him, to forego a chance at winning anything.

“Really? Why? I thought you played poker sometimes.”

“I do. Poker isn’t a game of chance. It’s skill. But casinos rig all the machines. Where’s the fun in that? Even if you win, it’s only because they let you.”

“Aren’t all societal institutions rigged?” Eliza shot back. She wasn’t as smart as he was, but she had taken a lot of sociology classes.

She surprised him into a rueful laugh. “You got me. Fine. I don’t gamble for money.”

“Too important?”

“Too unimportant.” 

There was a short silence.

“I think I’m in love with you,” Eliza said, breathing in the manufactured air and looking into Alexander’s brown eyes. If there was a right time to say this kind of thing, then this wasn’t it, but Eliza couldn’t bring herself to care. It felt good to say it out loud. Perhaps she should have been nervous that he would recoil from her, or worse, laugh it off, but she knew he wouldn’t.

“Oh, good,” he said instead, and it was her turn to be surprised into laughter. “I’ve loved you since the moment I met you.

That threw her a bit.

“You…have?” 

“You don’t have to sound so surprised about it. It’s not that hard, you know.” He was smiling at her, but Eliza couldn’t quite just take it in stride.

“But what about—“ She couldn’t bring herself to say it. She had to say it. “You and John. And, everything else. I know you and Angelica, well…”

Alexander wasn’t smiling anymore, nothing disguising his intensity. When he looked at her like that, Eliza wanted to believe that they were the only people in the world. It was dangerous and addictive.

“Do you want me to lie to you?” He asked abruptly, louder than was natural over the noise of the room. Eliza opened her mouth, closed it again. What was she supposed to say to that? He took her silence as affirmation.

“Ok, here’s the lie. When I met you, Eliza, the rest of the world lost its colour for me. I wanted nothing more than to love you and be loved by you. But I was afraid that you could never reciprocate, so I turned to John because he wanted me to. And to make you jealous. As soon I realised you might return even a fraction of my feelings, I broke off my other relationships and came running to your side.” He paused. “Do you like this story?”

He met her gaze evenly as he lied, no evidence of the falsehood on his face. It was a nice story, a romantic one, although rather cruel to John. It was the sort of justification Eliza herself might have come up with, when justifying her selfishness and her irrationality.

“So what’s the truth?” She asked.

“You demand so much of me,” he said, maybe half joking. “Fine, here’s the truth. Or rather, my truth, right now. I thought you were beautiful and kind and unlike anyone I’d ever met. But I was afraid you were too cautious, too stable, too establishment, and why would you want me anyway? And then I met John, and I fell in love with him.”

He paused, trying to read her face. She gave him nothing.

“I think I love too easily, maybe, or maybe I’ve been lucky to meet extraordinary people. God knows I’m not usually this lucky. Anyway, I love John too. I want to be consumed by him. But you—you make me want to live.”

“You shouldn’t give me that kind of responsibility,” Eliza said, deeply shaken at the turn the conversation had taken. 

“I won’t. I couldn’t. I just wanted you to know. I thought you deserved to know.”

“Are you trying to push me away?”

“Why would I do that?” 

“I don’t know. Until I met you, I had no idea a single person could be so perceptive and so oblivious at the same time.”

“Thank you, I guess.” He started to turn away from her. She reached out to grab him by the shoulder.

“Oh, Alexander. Stop taking yourself so seriously. This isn’t a proposal! It’s not even a date. I love you. I wanted to tell you that. Now we move forward. You’re trying to find your dad in LA, aren’t you?”

Eliza felt bad as soon as she saw how much that particular change of subject flayed him raw. 

“I—It’s stupid. He doesn’t want to see me. I just—didn’t really have anything else to do. I guess.”

“You don’t have to be ashamed. You’re allowed to love him. It’s on him if he doesn’t get in touch with you. It doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

“Practicing your therapy on me?”

“Trying to ask if you’ll come with me.”

“What?”

Eliza took a breath, then made the plunge. “Come back to New York with me. For a little while. My masters program starts in the fall, in the city. And I know you’re looking for a job. My father’s a lawyer, you know. He could get you an interview.”

Alexander stared at her for a moment, dumbfounded. Then his expression closed. “I’m not looking for handouts.”

“I didn’t say that. I said an interview. Just a foot in the door. Who knows where it will go from there?”

“You’d do that for me?” To her surprise, Eliza could see tears in his eyes.

“I’d do anything for you,” she said before she could stop herself. Alexander stared. Eliza opened her mouth, closed it again. She couldn’t take it back. She didn’t want to. But the tears in Alexander’s eyes were getting closer to the surface. When he spoke, his voice sounded cracked. Sad and prematurely old.

“Oh, Eliza. You really really shouldn’t. I thought you knew me.”

“I do know you,” she insisted, not sure where he was going with this.

“Then you know that I’ll take everything from you. From everyone. I’ll never stop. You know I won’t. I don’t deserve you, Eliza. I’m not worthy of your love.”

And now she understood, and it made her angry. It took all of her self control not to roll her eyes at him. Instead, she stood up, reaching a hand down to pull him up with her, wanting to look him in the eye, convince him how strongly she felt about this. “I’m so sick of this stuff. I’m so sick of comparing people and matching them up. It’s so stupid. This isn’t about worthiness, Alexander. It’s not about money or age or total number of selfish actions. I love you. And I think you love me too. Can’t that be enough?”

She felt badly immediately at the way his eyes widened. “I didn’t mean to mock what you’re feeling,” she said quickly.

He laughed humourlessly. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. What if I don’t care about what you’re feeling?”

“But you do care,” and she could see in his eyes that it was true. She would make him realise it. 

The staring match lasted a few seconds, but it was Alexander who folded first. “You’re a lot more stubborn than people give you credit for.”

She smiled smugly at him. 

“JACKPOT $10,000 JACKPOT” Both of them turned to see one of the machines on the far side of the floor lighting up frenetically. Eliza laughed suddenly. She had totally lost track of where they were.

“Want to go back to the hotel?” Alexander asked when the din had died down. 

“Actually, let’s go for a drive.”

***

They left without telling anyone where they were going. They held hands as they walked the few blocks back to the car. Las Vegas glittered around them, and Eliza didn’t think the city looked fake at all. They didn’t talk until they reached the car. The generic van looked out of place amongst the loud, bright nightlife. Eliza looked out of place. She didn’t mind.

“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?” He asked as she opened the door.

“Alexander, I’ve had half a beer. I’m fine.”

“Okay.”

She didn’t ask him where he wanted to go. She didn’t look at a map; she just drove. That was how this whole journey had started, just driving. Not turning to go home. It felt like years ago. Alexander put his hand on her knee.

They left the city behind.

It was true desert around them now, dotted with half-built planned communities, the suburbs of the future. It looked strangely dark after the bright lights of the strip. There were stars above them, millions of them. 

“Here. Let’s stop here,” Alexander said after a while. Eliza pulled off the road into a convenient, abandoned parking lot that might as well have existed only for them.

“I’m going to have to get used to looking at you head on, after all this,’ Alexander said lightly, twisting himself awkwardly in his seat. Eliza laughed. It was true. They seemed to have all their conversations sitting side by side. But that implication, that there would be more conversations, still sent a shiver up her spine.

“Yeah. And you might want to learn to drive sometime.”

“Not in New York.”

“What if you move?” What if you hate me? Or get bored of me? 

“I won’t. I don’t want to live anywhere else. Ever. Remember when you teased me for loving _The Great Gatsby_?”

Eliza smiled. “Of course I do.” She remembered falling in love with the hunger in his eyes.

“When I was at Columbia, I lived in this shitty apartment with like six random students in Harlem. And this one guy, Aaron, had a girlfriend who was way older, and they would have sex in our bedroom. Anyway, that’s not relevant. When they were in there, I’d go out and sit on the fire escape. And there was this nice apartment complex right across the street. And there was this family on the fourth floor. A man and a woman and their four year old kid. I’d watch them eat dinner on the living room floor every Friday night. And the kid would make up all these magic tricks. And they’d play scrabble sometimes after he went to bed. And they would laugh. They seemed like they were so happy. Like they really loved each other. I’d sit on the fire escape, and I’d watch them, and I’d think about that green light, beating us back into the past.”

Eliza could see it, Alexander, even younger and stringier than he was now, eyes just as hungry. She thought about herself then, when she hadn’t known he existed, lounging on the Quad at Smith and talking to her roommate about the cute guy in their econ class. 

Eliza’s phone rang.

Both of them nearly jumped out of their skin.

“Hello?” She asked, raising her eyebrows at Alexander.

“Ah, excellent, you live! We were getting worried, _cherie_. Is _le petit lion_ with you?” Lafayette shouted into the phone. There was music blaring in the background. Eliza drew the phone away from her ear and turned on the speaker. 

“Yeah, we’re both here! Sorry for not saying anything. We went for a drive.”

“Do you ever stop driving?” Mulligan yelled. 

“Apparently not. Where are you?” Eliza found herself raising her voice too.

“No idea!” 

“Are you okay? Do you need us to come get you?” Eliza asked immediately. Alexander shook his head at her, and Lafayette laughed.

“You are truly too kind, _cherie_ , but we have no need of your assistance. Go out, be free, drive to your heart’s content! Just do not abandon us before we reach Los Angeles. We cannot have Mulligan missing his conference after all this fuss.”

“It’s not fuss, Laf, it’s called a job!” Mulligan retorted. Eliza looked up at Alexander and he was grinning too, letting the rhythm of their friends’ banter wash over them. Then Alexander’s smile dimmed just a little, and he cleared his throat.

“Hey guys, can I talk to John?” He asked. Eliza looked at him, and he shrugged. 

A few seconds later, John was on the line. “Hello?”

Gently, Alexander took the phone from Eliza’s hand and unpressed speaker. He brought the phone to his ear, opening the car door as he did so. “Hey John, it’s me.”

The door closed.

Eliza watched in silence as he paced the desert, glad that she couldn’t hear whatever conversation they were having. She didn’t think she would ever not feel guilty about John, even if he didn’t really blame her, even if it was for the better. How would they ever know? And, perhaps more selfishly, she realised that Alexander would never be all hers, however long their relationship lasted. That he and John had burned themselves onto each others hearts in a place that Eliza could never touch. 

When Alexander finally came back to the car and held her phone out to her, there were tears in his eyes. But he smiled when he saw her, the wind threatening to pull out his ponytail. 

“Come out here. It’s beautiful,” he said with his most persuasive smile.

“It’s going to rain.”

“It’s not raining yet. Come on. Sit on the roof with me. Unless you think we’ll cave in your car.” Eliza rolled her eyes and got out of her side.

“Are you kidding? This thing is built like a tank.” 

“Then after you, my lady,” he said ironically, giving her a boost onto the hood. She reached back and helped him up. She could smell the rain on the air, and the wind was getting stronger.

“Have you noticed that you gravitate to high places?” Eliza asked, when they were settled beneath the stars.

“Less chance of flooding up here, my little therapist,” he said flippantly and Eliza laughed. 

“I’m trying to be serious.”

“And I’m not letting you.” 

She kissed him, soft and gentle on his laughing mouth. It was a distracting sensation, and surprisingly enough, Alexander was the first to pull away. Up here on the roof, they could look at each other face to face. He traced her face lightly with one hand, as if he were trying to memorise its lines, afraid of going blind. When he spoke, his voice was a little hoarse. 

“You spend all your time trying to figure me out. Why don’t I give you a try?”

“Ok.” 

“So. Eliza Schuyler. You’re caring. Like, you genuinely care about other people. And that’s so fucking rare in this world that it’s all anyone knows about you. Except maybe your sisters, and your very good friends, of course. We special, special people know that you’re perceptive, and determined, and adventurous. That you want to be a part of great things. That you don’t take care of your friends out of some misplaced motherly instinct, but because this is who you are. That you’re beautiful and sexy and look amazing in a bra and underwear jumping off a waterfall. And equally when you think no one’s looking. When you’re praying to a God who you make me maybe want to believe in. And even though everyone thinks that what you want is a normal life, and a husband and kids, I know that a life with you in it couldn’t ever be anything less than extraordinary. So, how am I doing?”

Eliza was crying, soft and warm. The tears felt good, and his callused fingers wiped them away before she could think to try. 

“I think you’re a writer, and you’re painting a beautiful picture,” she said.

“All I’m doing is trying to record a pale imitation of reality. People should know about you. They should remember you, how wonderful you are.” 

She shook her head gently. “No, no they shouldn’t. They’ll remember you, Alexander Hamilton. Not me. It’ll be just the five of us, who remember this trip. And just you and I, for this moment.” 

After a moment, he nodded, eyes trying to devour her still. “And, as you are fond of saying, that’ll be enough.” 

“It will,” Eliza said. Alexander kissed her head, breathing in her hair, and she folded into him, looking out to what she thought was west. In the morning, they would drive to LA. In the morning, the trip would be over, and although she was sure she would see the boys again, it would never be the same. She looked up at the stars, now mostly obscured by clouds, and felt Alexander’s warm body pressing against her, and smelled the rain growing thicker on the air, and lived in this small eternity on the top of a van in the desert outside of Las Vegas. In the morning, the trip would be over. 

But they were not quite there. In this moment, forever, they were together. They were young and happy and afraid of falling.

There was a storm coming. Eliza closed her eyes and held Alexander’s hand and turned her face to the wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started writing this story in the summer of 2016, and finally, two years later, here we are. I want to thank all of you who've read this from the beginning, and those who binged it in one night. Thank you for your lovely comments and for keeping the hate far away from me. This story is far from perfect, and I often struggled to keep going, but I'm so glad I did. Again, thank you.  
> \- josiepug

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are always appreciated. Love, your attention-hungry writer.


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